A retired railroad executive who dropped out of his Iowa House race two months before Election Day just won it anyway. Eric Armstrong defeated Republican Keith Jones by about nine percentage points and roughly 865 votes to capture Iowa House District 20, even though he announced on September 7 that he was stepping away from the campaign to deal with unspecified personal health issues.
A Campaign He Left, Then Won
According to the New York Post, Armstrong's win came even after he said in September that the choice to leave his campaign was deeply difficult. At the time, he said his district deserved a representative able to give 100 percent of their energy to the race, and that he needed to focus on healing so he could serve the community in other ways later. The margin of victory, as reported by The Hill, was about 865 votes.
Armstrong's Facebook announcement in September said he was stepping down from his campaign effective immediately, citing what he described only as “some personal health issues.” That stepping-back did not keep his name off the ballot, and voters in the district elected him regardless. He told The New York Times this week that the choice still weighs on him: “But I still have health issues, that's what I'm struggling with,” he added, according to the same report from The Hill.
What Happens Next Remains Unsettled
Despite the health struggles he described, Armstrong told The New York Times he would do his best to represent his new constituents. The Ballot Brief's candidate tracker noted that, as of Wednesday, the official answer on whether Armstrong was elected would not come until certification on November 30, per the site's own account.
There is also a discrepancy in reporting about whose seat Armstrong may be stepping into. The Hill reported that Armstrong would fill the state House seat previously held by fellow Democrat Josh Turek, who the outlet said won an Iowa Senate race. The Nonpareil, however, reported that Armstrong launched his campaign in February to succeed Turek after Turek was elected to the U.S. Senate. The two accounts conflict on which chamber Turek moved into, and the dossier does not resolve which is correct.
A Mixed Night for Iowa Republicans
Armstrong's win landed amid a broader Election Day shakeup in Iowa. Democrats won the governor's race for the first time in 20 years, and also took three of Iowa's four U.S. House seats, according to the New York Post's reporting. Still, Iowa Republicans held onto majorities in both the state House and state Senate, with several races left uncalled as of Wednesday.
The scale of that legislative shift was still coming into focus as votes were tallied. As of 3 p.m. Wednesday, Republicans had secured a majority in the Iowa House, with 51 seats called for Republicans and 40 for Democrats, and nine seats still outstanding, according to Iowa Public Radio. The public broadcaster's tally found that 10 Republican-held Iowa House seats had flipped to Democrats by that point, underscoring how competitive the chamber's races turned out to be even as the GOP retained overall control.
