GOP Gov Race Remains “Unsettled” and “Chaotic” 90 Days Out from Primary
DES MOINES – Iowa’s Republican gubernatorial race continues to be an “unsettled,” “chaotic and competitive” mess with no clear frontrunner 90 days out from the June 2 primary election.
Randy Feenstra has been “unable to clear the primary field” and recently “acknowledge[d] that getting past the June primary isn’t a slam dunk.” Feenstra has left the door open to more primary candidates filing for the governor’s race as he continues to face major problems with his own party, while GOP activists are planning for the “very, very real possibility” of the wide-open primary going to a “contested” convention.
From Iowa Democratic Party spokesperson Terra Hernandez:
“We’re 90 days out from primary day, and alarm bells are going off for Iowa Republicans. Randy Feenstra, Adam Steen, Zach Lahn, Brad Sherman, and Eddie Andrews are locked in an all-out sprint towards a messy, ‘contested’ convention in June. Every day that brings us closer to the primary is a reminder the field would be a continuation of Kim Reynolds’ record of corruption and failure: an economy in decline, failing public schools, and working families losing access to health care as politicians in Des Moines and D.C. drive their costs higher.”
What you need to know about Iowa’s wide-open GOP gov primary:
- No-show Randy Feenstra is facing major “dissatisfaction” and “opposition” from his own party after he finished a distant third in straw polls at the midterm caucuses, failed to get Donald Trump’s endorsement, and was snubbed by Bob Vander Plaats.
- Feenstra has spent his time in Congress as a “key author” of his party’s deeply unpopular budget law that threatens health care for 106,700 Iowans and puts at least 20 rural hospitals on the brink of closure, supporting costly and unconstitutional tariffs, and voting to shift millions in taxpayer dollars away from public schools to unaccountable private schools — all while failing to deliver a new Farm Bill or a deal on year-round E15.
- Kim Reynolds’ right hand man Adam Steen has tied himself to Reynolds’ failed record of economic mismanagement, declining public schools, and government corruption, saying “I support everything that Governor Reynolds is doing.”
- Steen wants to slash funding for Iowa’s public schools, make Reynolds’ unaccountable private school voucher scheme even less transparent, and ban abortion from conception onward without exceptions for rape, incest, or life of the mother.
- Montana political insider Zach Lahn has spent his career as a staffer for the Koch brothers’ dark-money national lobbying group, supporting the destructive tariffs that are causing Iowa farmers “extreme financial distress” and opposing Medicaid expansion.
- Lahn is bankrolled by a violent rioter who “was arrested by the FBI and … us[ed] a flag pole to break into the Capitol and hit a police officer.”
- Brad Sherman and Eddie Andrews also support unaccountable school vouchers, backed tariffs that are raising prices and hurting farmers, agree on going even further than Reynolds’ six-week abortion ban, and want to raise taxes on hardworking Iowans.
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