Although Iowa voters have shown little excitement for the primary election less than two months away, political enthusiasts expect the races to pick up later this month.

The Iowa Primary, which is June 4, has not gained a great deal of attention from the media or from voters, said Steffen Schmidt, university professor of political science.

Schmidt said primary races don’t get much attention during non-presidential election years.

“This year is surprisingly worse, primarily because there are other things on peoples’ minds. People are not very interested in politics in general and are very busy.

“The little time people spend reading or viewing the news, they pay attention to what’s going on between the Palestinians and the Israelis, terrorism, the stock market and what the price of oil is right now. The primaries just aren’t up there on the list of things people care about right now.”

The primary includes federal, state and local elections, but the races for the U.S. Senate, House of Representatives and governor are expected to draw the most attention.

There are two Republicans running for U.S. Senate, three in the race for governor and four in the race for U.S. Representative in the western district.

Sarah Leonard, communications director of the Iowa Democratic Party, said this is the first year in state history the Democratic Party has tried to re-elect both a U.S. Senator and a governor on the same ballot.

They are also trying to regain the majority in the Iowa House and the U.S. House.

“In most of our races we are trying to re-elect candidates, which is much different than the Republican side of the race,” Leonard said. “We have to work harder to get voters out to the polls and get them excited this year. We are still deciding strategies for this, and we hope it will pick up after the legislative session.”

The legislative session, which captured most of the media attention and candidates’ time this year, would have ended April 12 had Vilsack not called a special session.

More debates, appearances and political events are expected between the end of April and the June 4 primary.

Republican party representatives expect a higher voter turnout and more excitement in this year’s election.

“I don’t think the Republican party will have a big problem getting voters to turn out,” said Joel Hannahs, communication director of Republican Party of Iowa. “We have a lot of contested races that should bring out lots of voters. Typically there is a lower voter turnout in non-presidential year primaries, but we expect the turnout to be higher this year similar to 1994.”

In the 1994 Republican primary, they had the largest voter turnout in a non-presidential year when Greg Ganske beat out a 36-year incumbent, Hannahs said.

Schmidt said the primary is expected to get more media coverage later this month, but voters probably won’t pay much attention until a few days before they vote.

“About two days or a week before the race, people realize, `Hey, maybe I should gather information about the candidates and vote,'” Schmidt said. “People generally wait until the last minute and that’s when the media coverage and public attention really picks up.”