IOWA CITY, Iowa — On a quiet residential street in Johnson County Monday afternoon, Bruce Braley volunteers congregated on the front porch of Robin and Rick Chambers’ home, eagerly awaiting their U.S. Senate candidate’s arrival.
Rep. Braley, a Democrat who is currently a member of the U.S. House, is neck and neck with Republican state Sen. Joni Ernst heading into Tuesday’s election to replace retiring Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa.
The crowd cheered as Braley and Harkin arrived, 30 minutes late, and walked up the asphalt driveway to thank the volunteers for their ground game.
“I’ve never been more confident than I am right now,” Braley said to a group of reporters positioned on the Chambers’ front lawn before heading inside to speak privately with the volunteers.
The candidate said he was there to let “hard-working volunteers and staff know how important their jobs are.”
Just one day earlier at an Amtrak station in Osceola, about 50 miles south of Des Moines, Ernst was at a rally asking for party support. Each of the Republican candidates on the state ballot, including Gov. Terry Branstad, stood nearby as Ernst spoke to the crowd.
“We can’t do this alone,” Ernst said to the audience. “None of us can do this alone, so we’re asking that you get out your neighbors, your family, your friends… and make sure you go vote.”
The two candidates have spent the final pre-election days stopping in many of the same cities across the state, including Des Moines, Davenport and Ames, making fleeting appearances and appealing to each community to get out and vote on Election Day.
The race that was all but handed to Ernst in a Des Moines Register poll Saturday has reverted back to one of the tightest in the country. Data from a Quinnipiac poll released Monday give the candidates an equal share of the votes, at 47 each, clearly within the poll’s three point margin of error.
“I want you to know this race has not been decided,” Harkin said to the crowd at the Chambers’ home. “It will be decided today and tomorrow here in the state of Iowa.”
