(Davenport, IA) State Representative Jim Lykam (D-Davenport) won the Iowa Senate District 45 special election to fill the seat that was left vacant when State Senator Joe Seng (D-Davenport) passed away after a long battle with cancer in September. This whittles the new Republican majority from 10 on election night to nine when they gavel in on Monday.
Lykam overwhelmingly defeated Michael Gonzales, the Republican nominee who is a police sergeant in the LeClaire Police Department, and Severin Gilbert, the Libertarian nominee, with a little more than 73 percent of the vote in the special election held on December 27th. Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate announced this week that 5,199 people voted in the special election which represents 11 percent of the registered voters in the district.
With Lykam’s resignation in the Iowa House after his victory his seat is now open. Iowa Governor Terry Branstad today announced that he has called for a special election in Iowa House District 89, which includes parts of Davenport and rural Scott County, on January 31, 2017.
This is a safe Democrat seat. Lykam ran unopposed in November to win reelection. He was first elected to the Iowa House in 2002. Democrats have a little more than a 2700 voter registration edge over Republicans in the district according to the Secretary of State’s office.
