New York Times: “G.O.P. Fatigue in Iowa Strains the Republican Primary for Governor”
DES MOINES – New reporting from the New York Times details how Randy Feenstra, Adam Steen, Zach Lahn, Brad Sherman, and Eddie Andrews are locked in a “bare-knuckle, personality-focused primary fight” with no clear frontrunner as early voting starts this week. Iowa Republicans are “telling anybody and everybody Mr. Feenstra can’t win the general election because he cannot motivate the Republican base.”
Republican voters from Feenstra’s own congressional district “say he has hardly been present in his district since being elected to Congress in 2020” and “are sick and tired of him not showing up and not giving us answers.” According to the New York Times, “the signs of headwinds are all around Republicans” after Feenstra, Steen, Lahn, Sherman, and Andrews all pledged to continue Kim Reynolds’ deeply unpopular legacy.
Read more from the New York Times here, or key points below:
- The five Republican candidates vying for their party’s nomination to be Iowa’s next governor mirror one another on policy issues: Abortions must be outlawed, as most are in Iowa; school choice, already state law, should be expanded; and religious freedoms must be protected, as they already are.
- But as they sprint toward the June 2 primary under such familiar Republican themes, the three top candidates — Representative Randy Feenstra; Zach Lahn, a farmer and businessman; and Adam Steen, a former aide to the governor he hopes to succeed, Kim Reynolds — can seem oddly removed from the political environment around them.
- Instead, with early voting set to start Wednesday, they are focused on one another, in a bare-knuckle, personality-focused primary fight.
- “The Democrats see the environment; I think they see Republicans are divided,” said Bob Vander Plaats, an influential Christian conservative in Iowa whose endorsement has been long sought-after by G.O.P. candidates. They see there is a fracture in the party,” he continued, “and they believe that Rob Sand, who comes off a churchgoing, gun-toting taxpayer watchdog, they believe he’s the kind of candidate that can win back the governorship.”
- The signs of headwinds are all around Republicans. Ms. Reynolds, Iowa’s socially conservative governor, is preparing to leave office after nine years with the lowest approval rating of any governor in the country.
- Iowa, a state that three times voted for Donald J. Trump after twice voting for Barack Obama, is groaning amid rising fuel and fertilizer prices, steel and aluminum tariffs that have hurt manufacturers, and countertariffs from trading partners that have walloped agriculture exports.
- And policies that might have been popular in theory, such as taxpayer-funded vouchers for private schools, are proving to be less palatable now that they are the law. Public schools have been drained of resources to finance vouchers, especially in rural areas where private schools might not exist.
- “Kim Reynolds really attacked public education,” said Mark Nelson, a farmer and Republican county supervisor in Woodbury County. “You can’t attack and undermine one of your biggest areas of the work force and not have it be detrimental to that next election.”
- Now Mr. King, still influential, is backing Mr. Lahn, who has been attacking Mr. Feenstra as the Republican establishment candidate.
- Meantime, Mr. Vander Plaats is backing Mr. Steen and telling anybody and everybody Mr. Feenstra can’t win the general election because he cannot motivate the Republican base. Another influential Christian conservative, the radio personality Steve Deace, has also been attacking Mr. Feenstra and promoting whichever candidate can keep him beneath 35 percent of the vote.
- That is because, if no candidate meets that threshold, a convention of delegates will pick the Republican nominee.
- Mr. Feenstra’s challenge might be changing the minds of Republican primary voters who say he has hardly been present in his district since being elected to Congress in 2020.
- Sherri Webb, 76, a Republican farmer who lives in northwest Iowa, said if the congressman won the nomination, she would vote for Mr. Sand. “Most of us are sick and tired of him not showing up and not giving us answers,” she said.
- Mr. Feenstra’s campaign did not answer a list of questions, including about why he did not participate in a debate aired on PBS last month.
- But Mr. Steen, who worked in the Reynolds administration for about five years, faces his own hurdle, on what until recently seemed to be his best selling point: his association with the governor.
- Perhaps her most debated move was the introduction of education savings accounts that provide about $8,000 in public funds for private school tuition per student. Since the program began in 2023, Iowa’s public schools have lost more than 13,000 students, about 3 percent, and several have closed.
- All the Republican candidates have said that they would expand the program.
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