Tonight I saw the first political TV ads related to a state-level race. Both were for the state Senate district that includes Marshall and Tama counties. Both were negative.
The move is an interesting one. Depending on how you look at it, the district is both divided by and overlapping of TV markets. Eastern and central Iowa TV stations both cover events in Marshalltown, but Marshalltown plays in the CIML for sports with Des Moines teams (and now is in the western half of 4A football). For Nielsen purposes, Marshall County is in the central Iowa market while Tama County is in eastern Iowa.
(Updated to include further thoughts.)