Three Congressional candidates – an incumbent and two challengers – are vying to represent Ames and the rest of the newly redistricted Fourth District for the November 2002 election.

Republican incumbent Tom Latham, who is seeking re-election for his fifth term, first will be challenged by Gail Boliver in the June 4 Republican primary. The winner of the primary will face Ames resident John Norris, who is running on the Democratic ticket in November.

Latham will have to win the support of voters in the newly formed Fourth District, said Steffen Schmidt, university professor of political science.

The redistricting has changed the partisan makeup of the Fifth District, which Latham currently represents.

Both districts have a Republican majority of registered voters, Latham said, but the new Fourth District has a higher Democratic registration than the current Fifth District.

Currently, Latham represents 15 of the 28 counties in the new district.

“It creates one of the things which you least want to happen when running, which is uncertainty,” Schmidt said. “In this case, the district is new. There are new people in it, new voters in it.”

Latham will have to gain support from new voters, as well as those who voted for him before in the primaries and the general election, Schmidt said.

“This is generally interesting because it creates a situation where Latham is going to be distracted from focusing his campaign on the race,” Schmidt said. “It’s not very likely that an incumbent gets bumped off in a primary, but it happens.”

Boliver said the redistricting could work in his favor.

“I think it substantially changed [Latham’s] electorate,” he said. “In his old district, I believe he had a much more conservative electorate. Tom is very conservative. My categorization is that I am moderate.”

Despite similar backgrounds in farm communities, the men vying for the Congressional seat possess different strengths and values.

Norris said his priorities are to provide public education with adequate resources, to protect Medicare and keep it financially secure, and to create tax cuts to help working families.

Boliver’s platform includes increasing global marketing for Iowa’s agriculture, researching hydrogen as an alternate fuel and providing subsidies to small farmers.

Latham said his strengths include the “experience and relationships I have gained over the last eight years in Congress itself, which would be able to be effective for the new district immediately.”