United States House of Representatives elections in Iowa, 2012

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	2012 U.S. Senate Elections

The 2012 U.S. House of Representatives elections in Iowa took place on November 6, 2012. Voters elected four candidates to serve in the U.S. House, one from each of the state's four congressional districts.

Candidate Filing Deadline	Primary Election	General Election
March 16, 2012	June 5, 2012	November 6, 2012

Primary: Iowa has a mostly closed primary system: voters must be registered with the Democratic or Republican Party in order to vote in the primary, but they may switch their party affiliation on election day.^[1]

Voter registration: Voters had to register to vote in the primary by May 26.^[1] For the general election, the voter pre-registration deadline was October 27,^[2] but voters could also register at the polls on Election Day, provided they brought proper documentation.^[3]

See also: Iowa elections, 2012

According to the New York Times race ratings in October 2012, two of the four districts were considered to be in play, District 3 and District 4.^[4]

The Center for Voting and Democracy (Fairvote) did not make a projection as to which party would win any of Iowa's four seats.^[5]

Primary competitiveness

See also: National contested primary average during the 2012 U.S. congressional elections

Iowa was tied with Arkansas for having the 36th most competitive congressional primaries in 2012, with 37.5% of major party primaries having been contested (3 out of 8). The national average was 54.31%.

Five U.S. House incumbents were seeking re-election in Iowa in 2012. 1 of those 5 (20%) faced a primary challenger. Nationwide, 200 out of the 386 incumbents seeking re-election faced a primary challenger (51.81%).

Partisan breakdown

Heading into the November 6 election, the Democratic Party held three of the five Congressional seats from Iowa. However, the state lost one seat after the 2010 census and elected four representatives.

Members of the U.S. House from Iowa -- Partisan Breakdown
Party		As of November 2012	After the 2012 Election
	Democratic Party	3	2
	Republican Party	2	2
Total		5	4

Incumbents

Heading into the 2012 election, the incumbents for the five congressional districts were:

Name	Party	District
Bruce Braley	Democratic	1
Dave Loebsack	Democratic	2
Leonard Boswell	Democratic	3
Steve King	Republican	5
Tom Latham	Republican	4

Margin of victory for winners

There were a total of 4 seats up for election in 2012 in Iowa. The following table shows the margin of victory for each district winner, which is calculated by examining the percentage difference between the top-two vote getters. If the race was uncontested, the margin of victory is listed as 100%.

District	Winner	Margin of Victory	Total Vote	Top Opponent
Iowa, District 1	Bruce Braley	15.4%	390,590	Ben Lange
Iowa, District 2	Dave Loebsack	13.1%	380,952	John Archer
Iowa, District 3	Tom Latham	8.6%	386,270	Leonard Boswell
Iowa, District 4	Steve King	8.1%	377,657	Christie Vilsack

General election candidates

This is a map of the congressional districts of Iowa before and after the 2010 redistricting. The image also includes the partisan breakdown of the districts that are close in registration figures.

District	General Election Candidates	Incumbent	2012 Winner	Partisan Switch?
1st	Bruce Braley Ben Lange Gregory Hughes George Todd Krail II	Bruce Braley	Bruce Braley	No
2nd	Dave Loebsack John Archer	Dave Loebsack	Dave Loebsack	No
3rd	Leonard Boswell Tom Latham David Rosenfeld Scott G. Batcher	Leonard Boswell	Tom Latham	Yes
4th	Christie Vilsack Steve King Martin James Monroe	Tom Latham	Steve King	No
5th	District Removed in Redistricting	Steve King	N/A	N/A

Candidates

Note: Election results were added on election night as races were called. Vote totals were added after official election results had been certified. Click here for more information about Ballotpedia's election coverage plan. Please contact us about errors in this list.