Reynolds’ campaign has had months to prepare their negative attacks on Hubbell. Even with the Democratic primary, there were plenty of signs that Hubbell was going to be victorious (and you prepare for everyone regardless). And given all the messaging they’ve already done on the Younkers closures (from billboards to this TV ad to their “Fired By Fred” website), it’s clear they think this is one of their best lines of attack.

So, with all of that lead time to get their first negative ad ready, they still couldn’t find a single person who wasn’t a Republican Party leader that was actually impacted by the local Younkers shutting down 30 years ago? Kevin Brown and his wife are in their 20s and 30s. Given their graduation dates from high school, Tara was likely one or two years old when the Younkers in Spencer closed in 1990. Kevin was likely four or five. And they both grew up one county over in O’Brien County, anyway.

It’s very easy for a campaign to just skim through the county party leadership lists to recruit a couple local Iowans for ads. Maybe viewers won’t notice any difference, but certainly it would be a more effective ad if you found someone who was actually laid off all those years ago. To do that, however, your campaign has to have extensive, natural contacts throughout the state that go deeper than just party leadership. This seems to suggest that the Reynolds campaign, which has had significant staff turnover, may not have that.

It also indicates that perhaps these closures weren’t quite as impactful as Reynolds is spinning them to be if there aren’t people coming out of the woodwork to talk about their experience.