Can Bobby Schilling bounce back?

Picking up Iowa’s 2nd District would be a positive sign for state Republicans, who in the past 10 years have seen it transform from the only Democratic region in the state to one of three Democrat-controlled districts. And a win there could help stem the 2018 blue tide that brought in Reps. Abby Finkenauer in the 1st District and Cindy Axne in the 3rd District. A strong candidate in the 2nd District could even help save the embattled Rep. Steve King, Iowa’s lone House Republican, from his own mouth — though that’s just as arguably a downside.

It’s a matter of finding the right candidate to pick up the seat. Democrats have already found theirs, lining up neatly behind Rita Hart, a state senator who is using Trump’s trade war with China as a rallying cry for her agriculturally conscious supporters. Loebsack endorsed Hart in May, calling her the “perfect” person for the district.

Two Republicans think they are better suited. State Sen. Mariannette Miller-Meeks says she’s considering mounting a fourth run for the district after losing to Loebsack in 2008, 2010, and 2014. But so far, the momentum of this race is behind the only declared GOP candidate, former Rep. Bobby Schilling, who made waves when he captured Illinois’ 17th Congressional District — located just across the Mississippi River from Iowa’s 2nd District — as a Tea Party candidate in 2010.

“This time around actually reminds me of 2010,” Schilling tells me as we drive through Davenport, the largest city on the Iowa side of the “Quad Cities” — a cluster of five urban areas bordering the Mississippi: Davenport and Bettendorf in southeastern Iowa, and Rock Island, Moline, and East Moline in northwestern Illinois. Since 2017, Schilling has lived on the Iowa side in a house he built for his wife and 10 children. We’re on our way there now, to LeClaire, a town that boasts of being the birthplace of Buffalo Bill and the home of History Channel’s American Pickers.

Schilling spent his whole life crossing back and forth between Illinois and Iowa. As we drive through Davenport, he recalls how, as a young boy, he ran a paper route through the city. Across the river in Rock Island, he points out the white clapboard house where he grew up and chuckles as he tells me about all the trouble he caused as a kid: forging notes from his father to buy cigarettes underage, teaching himself to drive a stick shift in the alleyway near his house, and throwing parties when his parents weren’t home.

Schilling went to college but didn’t finish. Instead, he worked in the Rock Island area and served as a union steward for the local chapter of the United Paper Workers International Union in the late 1980s. He then took a job in 1987 as an insurance agent at Prudential. In 1996, he bought Saint Giuseppe’s Heavenly Pizza in Moline off of his brother, thinking it would be a fun side job. Instead, he made pizza his business for almost 15 years.

But in 2008, dissatisfied with then-presidential candidate Barack Obama’s promise to “spread the wealth around,” Schilling began to consider a future in politics. He declared his candidacy in 2009.

Schilling ran a hard race and unseated Democrat Phil Hare. Despite being outraised by Hare, the Rock Island native had two advantages on his opponent: a working-class knowledge of his community and the benefit of a public outraged by House Democrats’ passage of the Affordable Care Act. This latter point greatly helped Schilling, especially when Hare was caught on camera saying that for Obamacare, “I don’t worry about the Constitution,” which translated to tea partyers as, “I don’t care.”

Once in office, Schilling did not become a creature of Washington. He slept on the couch in his office (which, he notes, fellow 2010 tea party Rep. Joe Walsh did in his own office as well). He voted against the fiscal cliff compromise bill and the extension of the PATRIOT Act. He vocally opposed Obama on healthcare reform.

Redistricting in 2011 and a fierce campaign by Democrat Cheri Bustos forced Schilling out of office in 2012. He challenged her to a rematch in 2014 but lost then, too. The enmity remains. With this race, Bustos is already sniping at Schilling from across the river: “I think he’s got a third loss coming his way,” she told Peoria Public Radio in July.

Schilling is paying no mind. After the 2014 loss, he returned to his pizza business. And since 2017, he has been living in Iowa and focusing on opening more Saint Guisseppes in the state. A poor business environment and unlivable taxes forced him out of Illinois, he says. Iowa was just across the river, so he made the jump.

“I’ve got 55 years in this community,” he says. “All my friends still live here.”

Schilling is confident he has a shot at winning his new district, even though 2020 poses a challenge similar to the one he faced in 2010. He’s essentially an outsider with no background in Iowa politics, much like his position before launching his run in Illinois. He’s also still a fiscal and social conservative in an area of the country where people tend to place practicality first when casting votes.

But Schilling believes that his union background and small business experience will appeal to the commonsense voters of his new district. That, coupled with the region’s suspicion of the radical wing of the Democratic Party, he believes could be the path to victory for Republicans in the district.

“Our politics have worsened considerably. The voices leading the modern Democratic Party have forced the party dangerously leftward,” Schilling said in his announcement video. “We have enough radical progressives in Congress — let New York have Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, let Minneapolis have Rep. Ilhan Omar — Iowa can do a whole lot better.”

At the same time, Schilling points to his record when he was the congressman across the river as proof of his commitment to local issues. There, he fought for more legislation ensuring greater ease for public-private partnerships at the Rock Island Arsenal, the Quad Cities’ largest employer.

Bettendorf mayor Robert Gallagher believes Schilling could keep up the same fight on the Iowa side, which under Loebsack tended to favor the interests of Iowa City, where the University of Iowa is located.

“We’ve struggled for a while to have some representation here,” Gallagher says. “The Quad Cities and Iowa City, though only separated by 55 miles, politically they’re a world away.”

He believes the fact that Schilling’s father was a Democrat, and that he has a proven union background, will help him bring in more left-leaning voters: “I think that makes him the ideal candidate to hopefully go win some of those left-leaning votes in Iowa City and bring in the independents.”

For people such as Gallagher, supporting Schilling is a pragmatic decision. With experience in Congress, he explains, Schilling understands the “illogical ways that our government operates,” specifically the allocation of federal funds for projects in specific districts. Gallagher says that Schilling already has a proven track record on this front, remembering how the two worked together to secure funding for a new bridge crossing I-74 between Moline and Bettendorf.

The critical moment for the project, which had been underway for several decades, occurred in 2012, when Schilling, along with several other local leaders, received a visit from then-U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood. Upon seeing the derelict state of the bridge, LaHood declared, “This is one of the worst bridges I’ve ever seen in America.”

The comment was an embarrassment, but it’s exactly what local leaders wanted to hear. Schilling and Gallagher say LaHood’s disgust spurred lawmakers from both parties in both states to get the project in motion.

“That’s how we get things done. We get the decision-makers to come show up,” the mayor tells me, adding that Quad Cities needs someone “who knows enough and has the relationships to bring the people in. And I think Bobby’s experience is going to be helpful there.”

And among social conservatives, Schilling knows his crowd: the Palinites of 2008 and the tea partyers of 2010 in Iowa are essentially the same voter bloc now as they were in their heydays. Yes, in an ideal world they would like a fiscally responsible government, but unless that’s undergirded by care for human life — from conception to natural death — they’re not going to budge for a social liberal, Republican or Democrat.

“When you have somebody who has a heart for life, they’re going to care about all the other things in your life,” says Luana Stoltenberg, a leading pro-life activist in the Quad Cities. “If somebody doesn’t care about me before I was born, why are they going to care about my pocketbook or my job or anything else for that matter?”

But according to Stoltenberg, social conservatives in Iowa, as in most parts of the United States, take a measured approach to issues like abortion.

“I’d love it if we could change it all at once, but sometimes things have to be gradual,” she says. “Our nation slid gradually, so we have to educate gradually.”

Schilling agrees, later noting the need for prudence in introducing pro-life legislation, calling for an “incremental rollback” on abortion. At the state level, this means amending the constitution to include protections for life. Nationally, it means passing measures such as the Born Alive bill to protect babies who survive abortions.

Schilling believes a combination of measured social conservatism and economic pragmatism is a winning formula for his district. And the numbers show it’s a good bet. When he lost the Illinois 17th District to Bustos in 2012, Schilling outperformed Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney by 5% locally, which he takes as a sign of his crossover appeal to Democrats.

But flipping a district is still tough work. As we leave a diner in Bettendorf, Schilling spies a group of retired John Deere employees sitting at a far table. He walks over to them and engages in a wide-ranging conversation, going down the table and talking to each one.

Eventually, Schilling makes his exit. A man follows him out of the diner and tells Schilling he’s interested in learning more about his campaign.

“We need a change,” he says. “We really do.”

Nic Rowan is a media analyst at the Washington Free Beacon.