We are 20 days out from election day and Iowa Republicans have closed the early voting gap to within 9,000.
The Iowa Secretary of State’s office released early voting numbers as they stand as of 10/14/14.
Here are the ballot requests:
| Congressional District | Democrats | Republicans | No Party | Libertarian | Iowa Green | Total |
| Iowa 1st CD | 35,643 | 27,469 | 17,900 | 88 | 43 | 81,143 |
| Iowa 2nd CD | 37,790 | 27,102 | 17,358 | 73 | 56 | 82,379 |
| Iowa 3rd CD | 35,858 | 31,597 | 14,276 | 85 | 42 | 14,276 |
| Iowa 4th CD | 24,675 | 32,941 | 12,463 | 46 | 23 | 70,148 |
| Statewide | 133,966 | 119,109 | 61,997 | 292 | 164 | 315,528 |
Here are the early voting ballots received by county auditors:
| Congressional District | Democrats | Republicans | No Party | Libertarians | Iowa Green | Total |
| Iowa 1st CD | 18,811 | 13,756 | 7,403 | 36 | 14 | 40,020 |
| Iowa 2nd CD | 19,081 | 13,980 | 6,653 | 25 | 24 | 39,763 |
| Iowa 3rd CD | 16,895 | 14,767 | 5,311 | 30 | 14 | 37,017 |
| Iowa 4th CD | 13,109 | 16,442 | 5,280 | 14 | 11 | 34,856 |
| Statewide | 67,896 | 58,945 | 24,647 | 105 | 63 | 151,656 |
The strength for Republicans is in the Iowa 4th Congressional District and they are pretty close to Democrats in the 3rd Congressional District. Trailing by 9,000 may not seem like much to get excited about, but to put things into perspective this time in 2012, Democrats led Republicans in early voting (returned ballots) by 54,081. Granted that was a Presidential election year. If you go back to 2010 which was a strong Republican year and a midterm election Democrats led Republicans by 22,112. By the time election day rolled around Republicans were still 19,494 ballots behind.
Both parties are pacing ahead of where they were at in 2010. This time in 2010 Democrats had 49,176 ballots received. They have 67,896 now. Republicans have more than doubled where they were at on October 14, 2010. They had 27,064 ballots received. Yesterday, the Iowa Secretary of State’s office recorded 58,945 ballots received.
The largest advantage that Democrats have had this year was 12,801 ballots received, Republicans have cut that advantage down to 8,951. Iowa Republicans are on track to significantly reduce the early voting gap or erase it completely this year.