A poll in the field this week is testing dozens of messages about the two Democrats running for governor, State Auditor Rob Sand and Julie Stauch, who has worked for many Democratic campaigns and nonprofit organizations.

The survey appears designed to identify Sand’s weaknesses and the strongest arguments a competitor could make before the June 2 Democratic primary. Several questions highlight how Sand has distanced himself from his party or failed to take a stand on issues that matter to many Democratic voters.

A spokesperson for Sand’s campaign confirmed they did not commission the poll but declined further comment. Stauch declined to comment for the record.

Some other entity may have paid for the survey—perhaps a Democratic-aligned group or large donor considering spending to support Sand or Stauch for governor. It’s also possible a Republican-aligned group is thinking about meddling in the Democratic primary to weaken the likely nominee. (The Downballot reported on January 29 that “a prominent GOP consulting firm is financing an obscure group that’s run digital ads and sent out mailers” in support of a Democratic candidate for an upcoming special election in Michigan.)

Sand is the overwhelming favorite to win the nomination, with higher name ID, statewide election victories in 2018 and 2022, and more than $13.2 million cash on hand as of December 31, compared to around $12,000 in Stauch’s campaign account. Even so, a strong primary challenge could weaken the front-runner, by forcing his campaign to spend more before the general election period, or by exposing how he has alienated part of the base he would need to win in November.

Bruce Lear lives in Sioux City and has been connected to Iowa’s public schools for 38 years. He taught for eleven years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association regional director for 27 years until retiring. He can be reached at BruceLear2419@gmail.com 

Governor Kim Reynolds laid out her last legislative agenda in her Condition of the State address on January 13. It took a while for me to remember that much avoidance in a speech. I remember now.

After the teachers in a building were fed up with lack of leadership, and aggravation reached critical mass, there were often explosions. I always knew the “Enough is enough” stage had been reached when the phone calls began from teachers I’d never met. They were the silent majority, but now they were ready to shout.

Former Des Moines Register assistant sports editor Ira Lacher writes about the games and business of sports for various newspapers and magazines.

“Dad, two of the greatest football players in the country hang out in a speakeasy downtown.”

“Are you suggesting that I, the president of Huxley College, go into a speakeasy without even giving me the address?”

“It’s at forty-two Elm Street, but you can’t go there. It’s unethical. It isn’t right for a college to buy football players.”

“It isn’t, eh? Well, I’ll nip that in the bud. How about coming along and having a nip yourself? Or better still, you wait here.”

— Groucho and Zeppo Marx, “Horsefeathers,” 1932

Did everyone in sports-land toast January 16? That was the day when the season’s transfer portal officially closed, which means you can be pretty sure who’ll be on your favorite college basketball and football teams for the 2026–27 season. 

Unless a court agrees that the University of Washington is restraining Demond Williams Jr.’s right to make a living by denying him access to the transfer portal and holding him to the name, image, and likeness (NIL) contract he signed with the school. Or if another court says Darian Mensah’s access to the portal supersedes the binding NIL contract he signed with Duke University. 

This isn’t the Wild West, as some critics characterize big-time football and basketball. It’s Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.

“I am not interested in pretending this is just a private medical matter. It is a public policy failure playing out in my body,” State Senator Catelin Drey said in an extraordinary Senate floor speech on January 26.

The Democrat from Sioux City revealed that she has been diagnosed with stage 1 uterine cancer, and explained why she plans to be transparent about her cancer journey.

The Iowa Senate Democrats made their recording of Drey’s remarks available to Bleeding Heartland.

Julie Stauch is a fifth-generation Iowan and lifelong problem-solver running to be Iowa’s next governor. Learn more about her campaign at www.juliestauchforalliowans.com.

Gubernatorial candidate Julie Stauch issues a letter to all Iowans:

This is not a typical press release. But this is not a typical time. On Saturday evening I stood outside on my front porch at exactly 7 o’clock. Around the entire nation, and perhaps the entire world, thousands stood outside on their porches, with candles and flashlights, to acknowledge the inhumane horror that took place on the streets of Minneapolis that morning. My Minnesota neighbor was murdered by our own federal government.

I have rarely felt such anger as I have this past week, nor as much shame and sadness. To my fellow Iowans and our neighbors across the country who are also sitting with the memories of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, I am here for you. And to my neighbors who were not aware of the atrocity committed by ICE agents or are choosing to look away, I am here for you, too.

I invite you to join me at this moment. This is the last straw. Alex Pretti was a nurse with the Department of Veterans Affairs. He was a federal worker exercising his First Amendment right to freedom of speech.

A poll in the field this week previews attack lines Republicans may use against State Senator Sarah Trone Garriott, if she becomes the Democratic nominee in Iowa’s third Congressional district. The same poll tests positive messages about the incumbent, U.S. Representative Zach Nunn.

It’s not clear who commissioned the survey, but the question wording points to either Nunn’s campaign or some GOP-aligned group that plans to support Nunn’s re-election through independent expenditures.

The questions enclosed below are taken verbatim from a text version of the poll. I don’t know whether some voters in the third district are being surveyed by phone; some political polls are conducted entirely by text, while others use multiple methods to reach respondents. UPDATE: A source confirms there is a telephone version of this poll.

I fact-checked the claims about each candidate. According to the respondent who provided copies of the questions to me, this poll did not test any messages about two other Democrats seeking the nomination in IA-03: State Representative Jennifer Konfrst and Xavier Carrigan. That suggests whoever commissioned the poll expects Trone Garriott, who has led the Democratic field in fundraising, to win the June primary. UPDATE: Konfrst ended her campaign and endorsed Trone Garriott on January 26.

A quick reminder: although you may feel angry when you see or hear inaccurate or biased claims about Democratic candidates, it’s better not to click away or hang up. Take screenshots or detailed notes, or record the phone call, and share the questionnaire with me. (I won’t publish your name.)

Justin Clark is an entrepreneur and husband in Dallas County. Chris Farber is a businessman, husband, and father in Waukee.

For most of our adult lives, we’ve tried to vote for the person, not the party. Neither of us has ever been interested in politics as a sport. We care about who seems steady, who understands everyday life, and who we trust to make decent decisions for Iowa.

Justin voted for U.S. Representative Zach Nunn—even recently—because at the time, he thought Nunn understood families like his and the realities most Iowans deal with.

Chris was a Republican for his entire adult life until 2016. That wasn’t casual. It was rooted in how he was raised and what he believed about responsibility, work, and keeping government practical.

This isn’t a story about flipping sides overnight. It’s about paying attention.

Wally Taylor is the Legal Chair of the Sierra Club Iowa chapter.

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources has drafted the 2025 update of Iowa’s Wildlife Action Plan. The plan shapes how we protect wildlife, restore habitat, and ensure healthy ecosystems for the next decade in Iowa. This post explains why that’s important, and how to encourage the state to follow its plan.

What’s a Wildlife Action Plan?

In order to receive federal funding for wildlife programs, each state is required to prepare a wildlife action plan, outlining the steps needed to conserve wildlife and habitat before they become too rare and costly to restore.

Herb Strentz was dean of the Drake School of Journalism from 1975 to 1988 and professor there until retirement in 2004. He was executive secretary of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council from its founding in 1976 to 2000.

Our system of government has long been recognized and valued for what makes it worthwhile and workable—the checks and balances the U.S. Constitution provides among and between the executive, judicial, and legislative branches of federal and state governments,

End of civics lesson.

That’s because the system is being abandoned, essentially junked, at democracy’s peril. Thanks to Donald Trump’s endless provocations and abuse of power, a politicized version of Whack-A-Mole is replacing our checks and balances. 

Adam Shriver is Director of Wellness and Nutrition at the Harkin Institute for Public Policy and Citizen Engagement. This essay was first published on his Substack newsletter, Canary in a Cornfield.

Republican State Senator Ken Rozenboom spoke at the Iowa Senate Agriculture Committee’s first meeting of the year on January 13. I appreciate that he raised the topic of nitrates in drinking water. He also made some comments that deserve a response.

I clipped a video from Rozenboom’s opening remarks, which I’ll focus on here:

Steve Dunn is a retired journalist who has self-published two books, about former State Senator Pat Deluhery’s political career and the history of professional baseball in Des Moines. This essay first appeared on his Substack newsletter, Blasts and Bunts.

To say we’re living in troubled times is an understatement. Since 2026 began, the U.S. has captured the leader of Venezuela and his wife, bombed Syria and threatened to take over Greenland by force if necessary. Not only that, but we’ve also witnessed the shooting of a Minnesota woman by an ICE agent.

After a church service on January 11, I told the associate pastor the toxic climate in the U.S. today is ten times worse than mood of the country in the 1960s, when I came of age. Oh sure, the 1960s included the highly unpopular Vietnam War, race riots, civil rights protests, and assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy.

But today an “us versus them” mentality has a stranglehold on America. It’s almost as if we’re two different countries with two different mindsets. We haven’t had this much division since the Civil War and the fight over preserving the union and abolishing slavery. Unfortunately, the divide is fueled by many talking heads on talk radio, social media, and television.

Noah Gratias is a Navy Intelligence Officer and Iowa State University alum. The views expressed are his own and do not reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Navy or the U.S. Government. He can be reached at noahgratias@gmail.com.

The past few months have demonstrated once again that many soybean producers cannot survive without access to firms owned and operated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). U.S. leaders should treat this vulnerability as a national security challenge, not a minor trade war glitch. There is danger in treating every economic dispute as a security issue, but this situation demands urgent attention. In practical terms, Beijing can bludgeon the Midwest any time Washington crosses the CCP.

Beijing understands this leverage and has built policy around it. “Grain security” is a CCP priority, and Chinese leaders have made it clear they are working to slash U.S. food imports. Investments in South America, combined with state-managed soybean reserves, have further enhanced Beijing’s advantage.

Al Charlson is a North Central Iowa farm kid, lifelong Iowan, and retired bank trust officer. This commentary was first published in the Waverly Democrat.

With reluctance and apprehension I am beginning 2026 by venturing back into the property tax jungle. In my September column, which focused on farmland taxes, I indicated I would return to address the property tax concerns of my in-town friends and neighbors.

In-town residential property taxes are more complicated for a couple of reasons. Of course, city residents pay city taxes—city finances could easily be the topic for an entire column. I had the opportunity to be a guest Waverly City Council member in January 2025, which included attending annual budget hearings. My overall impression was that our city operating departments are seriously committed to providing the services they deliver as efficiently as possible.

The other complicating factor is that houses are taxed on their estimated market value. That gets interesting. In 2024 the assessed value of our home was increased 15.3 percent. The Assessor only bumped up the value of the house by 6 percent, but increased the value of our lot by 56 percent.

Deaconess Irene DeMaris grew up in rural Washington state, where she often got in trouble for driving too fast down gravel roads in the family pickup. She moved to Iowa in 2018 after meeting her now husband. Irene lives in Des Moines, where she is active in her faith community, enjoys riding her bike, and is converting her lawn into a pollinator paradise.

I don’t always get excited about candidates running for office. But when I heard Wade Dooley was running for Iowa Secretary of Agriculture as a Democrat, I was so genuinely thrilled that I startled my two Corgis.

Since moving to Iowa in late 2018, I’ve traveled across the state, listening to rural communities and learning how farming deeply shapes both our economy, and even more so, our identity. One thing has become abundantly clear: when farmers are empowered to lead, big things happen. Farmers are natural problem-solvers, called to work the land, adapt to challenges, and innovate. They already are, and must continue to be, leaders in climate solutions.

Wade Dooley is exactly that kind of leader.

Rick Morain is the former publisher and owner of the Jefferson Herald, for which he writes a regular column. This essay first appeared on Substack.

Greenland, again? Really?

Apparently yes. Donald John Trump, president of the United States, on January 9 vowed to take control of Greenland, an autonomous part of America’s NATO ally Denmark. In these words: “We’re are going do something on Greenland whether they like it or not.”

Two days earlier, when a New York Times reporter asked whether there were “any limits on his global powers,” the president responded, “Yeah. There is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”

How about international law, Mr. President? “I don’t need international law.” And “it depends on what your definition of international law is.”

For most of the time Kim Reynolds has served as governor, her staff have tried to limit my access to information and news conferences available to other statehouse reporters. This week, the governor’s press secretary blocked me from attending a briefing a few hours before Reynolds delivered her Condition of the State address.

The video of my encounter with Mason Mauro on January 13 was shared widely and generated hundreds of comments across my social media feeds. Many readers, followers, and well-wishers (plus a few trolls) have asked about the incident—far too many for me to answer individually.

I’m addressing the most frequently asked questions below.

Bruce Lear lives in Sioux City and has been connected to Iowa’s public schools for 38 years. He taught for eleven years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association regional director for 27 years until retiring. He can be reached at BruceLear2419@gmail.com 

A new year is a time for making resolutions, starting new, and dreaming big. But quite often the treadmill becomes a clothes rack for things we’ve outgrown, and our resolve to eat healthier evaporates as soon as the drive-up for Raising Cane’s clears up. Keeping resolutions requires willpower and work, and they must be backed by determination and strategies for change. If not, resolutions morph into wishes.

Wishes might be fun when blowing out candles or sitting on Santa’s lap. But wishes are even weaker than resolutions. 

Resolutions are usually individual commitments, but I’m proposing a few collective resolutions around honestly preserving our U.S. and Iowa history.

I’ve been writing about the Iowa legislature, campaigns, and elections at Bleeding Heartland since 2007, and I’ve rarely looked forward to a new year in politics as much as this one.

With open-seat races for governor, U.S. Senate, and two U.S. House seats in Iowa, plus many incumbents facing challengers from within their own party, this year’s primaries will be the most fascinating I’ve covered—especially on the Republican side. The general election will feature competitive races for many state and federal offices.

The dynamics of the tenth legislative session under a GOP trifecta could be quite different, now that Governor Kim Reynolds is a lame duck, and senior roles in both the Iowa House and Senate have changed since last spring.

I will continue to publish deep dives and exclusive reporting about state government, legislative, Congressional, and campaign happenings at Bleeding Heartland, sharing links to all of those posts on Facebook, Bluesky, X (formerly Twitter), Mastodon, and the free Evening Heartland email newsletter.

But over the past five years, my political reporting has expanded far beyond this website. If you’re only following my work here, you’re not getting the whole picture.

The Iowa Senate reconvened on January 12 with a different look: a new majority leader (Mike Klimesh) and a changed balance of power: 33 Republicans and seventeen Democrats, down from a 34-16 GOP majority for most of the 2025 session.

Seven senators (four Republicans, three Democrats) were elected to the chamber for the first time in 2024, and three more won their seats in special elections during 2025.

Fourteen senators are women (eight Democrats and six Republicans)—that’s one more woman than last year, since Democrat Catelin Drey won the race to succeed the late Rocky De Witt in Senate district 1, and Renee Hardman won the race to succeed the late Claire Celsi in Senate district 16. The high point for women’s representation in the Iowa Senate was in 2023 and 2024, when the chamber had 35 men and fifteen women.

Hardman is the first Black woman to serve in the Iowa Senate and only the third African American ever elected to the chamber. Democrat Izaah Knox is also Black. The other 48 senators are white. No Latino has ever served in the chamber, and Iowa’s only Asian-American senator was Swati Dandekar, who resigned in 2011.

In 2023, Democrat Janice Weiner became the first Jewish person to serve in the Iowa Senate since Ralph Rosenberg left the legislature after 1994. She became the first Jewish person to lead an Iowa legislative caucus when her peers elected her minority leader in November 2024.

Democrat Liz Bennett is the only out LGBTQ member of the Iowa Senate.

I enclose below details on the majority and minority leadership teams, along with all chairs, vice chairs, and members of Iowa Senate committees. Where relevant, I’ve mentioned changes since last year’s legislative session. Although there hasn’t been as much turnover as the Iowa House saw during the interim, Klimesh did make quite a few changes in the committees compared to last year. He took all committee assignments away from one Republican (Doug Campbell) and took certain positions away from Kevin Alons, Mark Lofgren, Sandy Salmon, and Dave Sires.

Some non-political trivia: the 50 Iowa senators include four men named Mike (three Republicans and a Democrat), two Toms (a Democrat and a Republican), a Dave and a David (both Republicans), and two men each named Jeff, Mark, and Dan (all Republicans).

Normally, big changes in the Iowa legislature happen the year after a general election. But there has been much more turnover than usual in the Iowa House since last spring. With two Republicans running for Congress and another resigning from the legislature to take a Trump administration job, a chain reaction leaves ten House committees with a different leader for the 2026 session.

The overall balance of power remains the same: 67 Republicans and 33 Democrats in the chamber. Each party has some new faces in the leadership team, however. All of those details are listed below, along with committee assignments and background on all committee chairs and ranking members. As needed, I’ve noted changes since last year’s session.

Nineteen House members (fourteen Republicans and five Democrats) are serving their first term in the legislature—three more than in 2025, due to special elections that happened last March, April, and December.

The number of women serving in the chamber crept up from 27 at the beginning of 2025 to 29 as of January 2026, since Democrat Angel Ramirez succeeded Sami Scheetz in House district 78 and Republican Wendy Larson was elected to replace Mike Sexton in House district 7. The ratio of 71 men and 29 women is the same as during the 2024 session.

Six African Americans (Democrats Jerome Amos, Jr., Ruth Ann Gaines, Rob Johnson, Mary Madison, and Ross Wilburn, and Republican Eddie Andrews) serve in the legislature’s lower chamber. Gaines chairs the Iowa Legislative Black Caucus.

Republican Mark Cisneros became the first Latino elected to the Iowa legislature in 2020, and Democrat Adam Zabner became the second Latino to serve in the chamber in 2023, and Ramirez the chamber’s first Latina member in 2025.

Republican Henry Stone became the second Asian American ever to serve in the House after the 2020 election. Democrat Megan Srinivas was first elected in 2022. The other representatives are white.

Three House members identify as part of the LGBTQ community: Democrats Elinor Levin and Aime Wichtendahl, and Republican Austin Harris. As for religious diversity, Levin and Zabner are Jewish. Srinivas is Hindu. The chamber has had no Muslim members since Ako Abdul-Samad retired in 2024.

Some non-political trivia: the 100 Iowa House members include two with the surname Meyer (a Democrat and a Republican), two Johnsons (a Democrat and a Republican), and a Thompson and a Thomson (both Republicans).

As for popular first names, there are four men named David (one goes by Dave), three named Thomas or Tom, three Roberts (two Bobs and a Bobby), a Jon and a John, a Josh and a Joshua, a Mike and a Michael, and two men each named Jeff, Dan, Brian, Steven, Chad, Austin, and Mark. There is also an Elizabeth and a Beth, and two women each named Jennifer, Heather, Megan, and Shannon. As recently as 2020, four women named Mary served in the Iowa House, but now there is only one.