Iowa Politics with Jeff Stein -- Fri. Nov. 13, 2026

Turning on themselves, I'm Jeff Stein with today's Iowa Politics Report.

Building a winning coalition for an election is not easy, but there is single-minded focus on a goal, defeating the enemy.

As the saying goes, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

So you can see why folks who might not have much in common with one another would band together in their desire to elevate one party over another.

Those election night victory parties quickly fade into the background, however, as the real work of governing begins.

Now that the common enemy has been defeated, what do you do going forward to keep everyone in the coalition happy?

And as we have seen again this election cycle,

it does not take long for cracks to surface in the coalitions.

Witness this news release I received via email on Tuesday, back when we were getting emails as we should.

Thanks Microsoft for that hiccup this week.

The news release was from a group called Our Revolution and bore the headline, after midterm wave progressive grass roots want Democrats to confront corruption and Iran war, deliver on affordability and change democratic leadership.

That's certainly attention getting.

The story then boasts a survey of more than 4,000 progressive respondents who apparently said ending the war was tops for Congress, Medicare for all topped affordability measures, and 82% call, their phrase, tackling Trump's corruption.

Very important.

Obviously these voters were important and Democrat wins earlier this month and now the activist groups are standing in line for their payback.

One can understand why and one is not surprised since it happens after every election regardless of the party winning when a coalition is needed.

The disconnect comes from those who were elected.

How many of them have talked about much other than retribution against the president and his staff?

Sure, there's lip service paid to the Iran conflict, but no real plan other than repeating a campaign slogan.

You know, another old saying seems relevant here.

Politics makes strange bedfellows.

We'll have to see who winds up hogging the covers

when Democrats take charge of the bed in January.

And that's the Iowa Politics Report for Friday, November 13 on Twitter, Instagram, Gitter, Threads and Truth Social at Iowa Politics.

I'm Jeff Stein on News Talk 1540, KXEL.