Reynolds goes for broke on right-wing crusades
Gov. Kim Reynolds is doubling down on a right-wing agenda rejected by voters in Iowa and across the country on last week.
Reynolds is arguing for a six-week abortion ban before the Iowa Supreme Court in the wake of a wave of votes in Ohio, Virginia and Kentucky favoring abortion rights. Across Iowa, voters rejected her education agenda by wiping out the Moms for Liberty candidates from Carroll to Ankeny.
In Pella, a measure to give the city council veto power over library books failed.
Yet the governor persists.
She endorsed Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor and her political kindred spirit, just as his cutter was taking on water. Donald Trump declared her finished.
The Alta-Aurelia School Board takes the governor’s Department of Education very seriously, having walled off the children from the Alta Public Library. She warned school administrators just last week that the law is very clear about no mention of the birds and the bees in the classrooms.
The Storm Lake School Board made clear it had no intention of banning books or changing its curriculum to repress gays. The three incumbent candidates, all fairly moderate types, ran unopposed.
Iowans polled for moderation in this off-year election. They elected Reynolds to cut taxes, not to chase off queers or patrol the Mexican border. She delivered on the tax cuts but couldn’t stop. She pressed on with private-school vouchers, hugely unpopular. All the talk about sexuality made people uncomfortable all the way around — not good politics. Our state highways are terrible. Nursing homes are closing on meager Medicaid reimbursement. Average people are not invested in culture wars. They want good jobs, clean water, sound schools and a safe home for grandma.
That’s perhaps why Reynolds is the most unpopular governor in the USA, according to a Morning Consult poll. She has a 47% disapproval rating, up sharply just this year. DeSantis is No. 2 for least popular. Birds of a feather flock together — if so few people like you, stick with your obnoxious friends. While her approval with Republicans is high, Reynolds is tanking among independents. The more she hangs around DeSantis, the more she is perceived as mean. It doesn’t wear well.
Republicans are unlikely to lose their large majorities in the Iowa House or Senate in the 2024 cycle. But Reynolds is setting herself up for defeat as the GOP suffered huge losses in the suburbs around Des Moines and Cedar Rapids that once were thought safe turf.
Reynolds also is turning off friends in deep red Northwest Iowa, who may not be as motivated to donate or even vote in 2026 when she presumably stands for re-election. They like Trump out here. They remember.
State Auditor Rob Sand is best positioned to take her on. He is the only statewide elected Democratic officeholder. He has long insisted that he is nonpartisan, which is a good look these days as voters hate both parties. He is from Decorah with rural bona fides including dead turkey and deer. He can raise money.
Reynolds has not faced a strong challenger. Fred Hubbell had lots of money, which turned out to be his liability. Deidre DeJear had no money, which was her main liability. Sand will have cash without corporate baggage, but a populist he is not. He is a careful lawyer.
The ground is shifting beneath Reynolds’s feet but it does not look like she feels the tremors. She just keeps digging in.
Her mentor, Terry Branstad, would find a way to keep Trump close with one eye on the exit. He was fairly clever in co-opting the teachers union — Reynolds has energized the Iowa State Education Association by gutting collective bargaining and fostering the Moms for Liberty. If you want to lose ground in rural Iowa, fight the teachers and the school boards. She has won two elections, but the third one might be a lot harder.
The injuries are self-inflicted. Overreach is irresistible when the table is yours. Reynolds could have delivered tax cut on top of tax cut without all the cultural sideshow theatrics that Iowans would prefer not to deal with. They want reasonable limits on abortion but not a fetal heartbeat ban. They want discretion in their curriculum, but they would prefer teachers and principals sort it out, not the preachers and zealots. They wonder why their taxes are so high and Hwy. 7 is so bad. This is ripe ground for an opponent calling for moderation. Reynolds shows no signs of backing off her moral crusades soundly rejected in Pella and Carroll, of all places.
Art Cullen is the editor of the Storm Lake Times Pilot in Northwest Iowa, where this column appeared. For more columns and editorials, please consider a subscription to the Times Pilot. Or, if you wish, you can make a tax-deductible gift to the Western Iowa Journalism Foundation to support independent community journalism in rural Iowa. Thanks.
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Rob Sand has one thing going for him: He's from outside The Golden Circle. The Iowa Dems have been playing "next player in" from Polk County and its periphery too long and there's almost a total disconnect with the rest of the state. This goes back years but has culminated in the shellacking they took in 2022. Only a third of the statehouse seats, one statewide executive office (losing two longtime incumbents) and no seats in the congressional delegation. And their fourth straight defeat in the governor's race. Not to mention the inability to tabulate caucus results. You know things are bad when they have to pull Gov. Tim Walz down from Minnesota to come to the Iowa State Fair to show folks what a winner looks like. I think Sand's trying to position himself as a Democrat version of Richard Johnson (the former Republican state auditor who held Democrat and Republican governors accountable) or the second coming of Attorney General Tom Miller, another Dem from Northeast Iowa (And you can tell Miller's gone; I had a friend call the AG's office with a consumer protection question and the answer was "talk to a private attorney.").
And Sand has let folks know he's a hunter. I'm reminded of Dave Nagle's successful early campaigns for Congress and the "Sportsmen for Nagle" bumper stickers.
I hope Sand has the grit necessary to refuse assistance from the national party. Iowa Democrats won't start winning until they purge all the DNC suckups from their ranks. Those people know less than nothing about winning elections, let alone how to win elections in Iowa.
Nobody's asked for my advice but if I were Sand I would get my paperwork submitted to the Des Moines Register ASAP. Once he has their permission to run, he looks good to win.