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brooklynite

(94,581 posts) Mon Jun 1, 2020, 05:15 PM Jun 2020

Steve King's Primary Campaign Closes Under Cloud Of Paranoia

Congressman Steve King is feeling the pressure of a primary campaign unlike anything he has experienced since the first time he was narrowly elected to the Republican ticket.

King’s first run for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2002 was unusual in that he did not win outright on Election Day. Instead, a special convention was held in Western Iowa where party faithful were asked to choose between the district’s four candidates, none of whom crossed the 35% support threshold needed to win on Election Day.

Since then, the 4th District congressman has sailed through every primary contest, until now. King is on the ballot this year with four other Republicans. Based on fundraising, name recognition, endorsements and his time in the Iowa Legislature, state Sen. Randy Feenstra is expected to come within striking distance of King on Election Day tomorrow, and possibly pull off an upset.

King used the final minutes of a recent televised debate to spin a conspiracy theory about Feenstra’s congressional campaign and the origins of a Jan. 10, 2019, New York Times article that led to the loss of his House committee assignments.

This is King’s theory, in its entirety:

“It was a strategized attack on me. It was orchestrated. I knew it was coming. I got a heads-up warning the day before Thanksgiving in 2018 that they were going to try again. They told me who the messenger was likely to be. I went and met with that messenger on Jan. 8 [2019], and the messenger said, ‘I’d never do that to you, Steve.’