Where’s Randy? No-Show Randy Feenstra Misses Another GOP Forum

DES MOINES, IA – Another GOP candidate forum, another empty chair for No-Show Randy Feenstra. Just days after promising he would start showing up at forums with his fellow GOP candidates, Feenstra skipped out on another forum with the entire slate of Republican candidates for governor. At this point, it’s becoming a pattern, and Iowans are asking a familiar question: Where’s Randy?

As one voter told the Des Moines Register after the forum in Holstein, “I really kind of wanted to hear [Randy Feenstra], because I probably won’t vote for him again. And that’s my personal opinion. I haven’t seen a lot out of him, let’s put it that way.” As the Sioux City Journal’s Jared McNett summed it up, Iowans “are not happy about it,” saying that “it’s just person after person saying they don’t understand why you would run for governor and then not be present or transparent.”

On the On Iowa Politics podcast, reporters noted that Iowa’s crowded GOP primary has hit an “inflection point,” with “absent Randy Feenstra” drawing sharper and sharper criticism from his Republican rivals for failing to show up for Iowans and dodging every other GOP candidate forum thus far. Feenstra even earned a “thumbs down” and “jeers” from the Sioux City Journal’s editorial board, his hometown paper, after he skipped a forum in his own congressional district.

And Randy’s rivals aren’t holding back, either: 

Sioux City Journal: Feenstra misses another Iowa GOP forum, gets criticized by Republicans and Dems

• Candidate Zach Lahn said, “In Iowa, you must be present to win — and not everyone is present here.”

• Adam Steen’s campaign noted that Feenstra even scheduled an event “just a few miles away at the same time.”

• And Steen himself has now repeatedly asked the same question on the trail: “Where’s Randy?”

Des Moines Register: Iowa governor candidates take aim at absent Randy Feenstra in forum

• Adam Steen tore into Feenstra in his opening remarks, saying “it’s good to see all five gubernatorial candidates here. Just kidding. Where’s Randy Feenstra? He talks about how tall he is and nobody cares.”

• Brad Sherman called out Feenstra’s long string of absences, saying “that’s sort of becoming a pattern, you know.”

• Zach Lahn and Eddie Andrews piled on, with Lahn saying the “one person who isn’t here” is “disqualified.”

###