Welcome back to The Status Quo Squad — your weekly newsletter from the Iowa Democratic Party, bringing you the latest updates on the chaotic, messy, and wide-open Republican gubernatorial primary where all the candidates promise one thing: a continuation of the status quo that has failed Iowa for the last decade.
This week, Iowans in Cedar Rapids gathered to call out Randy Feenstra and Kim Reynolds for gutting health care, new data showed Iowans paid nearly $2,000 more for everyday expenses under one-party rule, and Feensta continued to face major problems with his own party.
Let’s get into it.
Health care headaches: Iowans speak out against Feenstra and Reynolds’ health care cuts in Cedar Rapids
Today Iowans gathered for the third stop of the Iowa Democratic Party’s “Decade of Denied Care” Tour in Cedar Rapids. Speakers called out Feenstra’s vote to gut Medicaid and put rural hospitals on the chopping block, Kim Reynolds’ Medicaid mismanagement, and how Iowans’ health care has suffered under a decade of one-party rule.
The Republicans running for governor support this health care disaster:
- Randy Feenstra voted to pass Kim Reynolds’ disastrous Medicaid privatization scheme in the state legislature, which drove up costs, ripped away health care, hurt Iowans with disabilities, and closed rural hospitals.
- In Congress, Feenstra bragged about being a “key author” of his party’s deeply unpopular budget law that threatens health care for 110,000 Iowans and puts at least 23 rural hospitals on the brink of closure, as 117,890 Iowans are seeing their premiums skyrocket.
- Adam Steen praised D.C. Republicans passing the largest Medicaid cuts in history and Reynolds privatizing Medicaid, saying “I support everything that Governor Reynolds is doing.”
- Zach Lahn has a history of opposing Medicaid expansion entirely — a position even more extreme than Reynolds’ disastrous privatization scheme.
- Brad Sherman and Eddie Andrews voted to kick thousands of Iowans off Medicaid and made it harder to get health insurance.
Taking costs to new heights: Iowans paid $1,928 more for everyday expenses under one-party rule
New data from the Senate Joint Economic Committee Minority found that Iowa families paid $1,928 more for everyday expenses — “including housing, transportation, food, clothing, health care, utilities, and other essentials” — thanks to the disastrous economic policies that Randy Feenstra supports.
- Feenstra voted multiple times to protect reckless tariffs that are crushing working families, small businesses, and farmers.
- Feenstra also repeatedly voted to continue the war in Iran that has sent gas, diesel, and fertilizer prices skyrocketing and is making everything more expensive for Iowans. Iowans have been forced to pay a whopping $157.3 million more for gas since the war began.
Iowans are paying more even as the state is losing jobs. Kim Reynolds’ reckless fiscal policies cost the state 4,400 jobs in February alone and 19,200 jobs in total since February 2025. Reynolds’ economic mismanagement also blew a nearly $1.4 billion hole in the state budget to fund tax breaks for powerful insiders and special interests and made Iowa the worst state in the country for economic growth.
Endorsement watch: Zach Lahn accepts endorsement from white supremacist Steve King
Last night, political insider and Kansas carpetbagger Zach Lahn accepted the endorsement of disgraced former Congressman and proud, avowed white supremacist Steve King. Lahn praised King as someone who “did the right thing even when it was unpopular,” stays “true to his principles,” and said he is “honored to have [King’s] support,” despite the former Congressman’s decades-long record of promoting hateful views and conspiracy theories.
A reminder of the “principled” comments Steve King has made as Lahn says he is “honored to have his support”:
- King asked why it was “offensive” to be a white nationalist: “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?”
- King promoted white nationalists and neo-Nazis on social media.
- At the 2016 RNC Convention, King claimed that “non-white groups haven’t contributed as much as whites to civilization.”
- In 2016, King met “with leaders of the far-right Freedom Party, including Heinz-Christian Strache and Norbert Hofer. The party was founded in the 1950s by former Nazis.”
- King refused to deny being a white supremacist.
- King touted the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory
- King claimed he didn’t understand why the term “white supremacist” was derogatory.
Feenstra fail of the week: Problems with his base cause chaos in wide-open GOP primary
This week, the Des Moines Register spotlighted Randy Feenstra’s “difficulty connecting” with voters in his own party — and why it’s become a “persistent theme” of the wide-open GOP gubernatorial primary.
- Feenstra habitually skipping multi-candidate events and refusing to debate his primary opponents “irritates activists and voters who expect to hear directly from their candidates in a state known for its retail-style politics,” and has motivated Feenstra’s opponents to “push the nomination to a convention.” Feenstra has even had trouble locking down support in his own congressional district, with voters there saying he’s “too establishment” and “soft on issues such as opposing eminent domain for the use of carbon capture pipelines.”
- Feenstra has been “unable to clear the primary field” after he failed to get Donald Trump’s endorsement, and “it’s been viewed as a snub” by Republicans and Democrats alike. The Cook Political Report’s Matthew Klein said “Trump’s reluctance to endorse is notable, given the fact that Trump traveled to Iowa and has backed a candidate in every congressional race in the state this year,” adding that “Feenstra has some work to do with the base.”
Members of his own party were quick to call out Feenstra’s problems with his base, saying “whoever can beat Randy is my guy” and “there’s no excitement for people to get out there and really rally behind [Feenstra].”
For more of their reactions to Randy “Deep State” Feenstra, click here.
Bottom line: No matter who emerges from this underwhelming and extreme crop of candidates, they are all running to continue Kim Reynolds’ failed policies that have put Iowa dead last in economic growth, set kids and public school teachers up for failure, and ripped away access to health care.
That’s a wrap for this edition of The Status Quo Squad. Thanks for reading, we’ll see you next week.