Jesse Parker is a concerned citizen with an educational background in history and politics.

Donald Trump’s return to the White House is a reminder that the Democratic Party needs to recruit, revitalize, and inspire a younger voter base. Over the span of twelve years, Iowa flipped from a swing state that voted for Barack Obama to a solid red state. This year, Democrats must begin the work to flip the colors back.

While Iowa voter turnout hovered around 74 percent for the recent presidential election, young Iowans mark a problematic demographic with disappointing voter participation. Iowans aged 18-24 had an abysmal turnout rate of 29 percent in the 2022 general election, while 25–34-year-olds were only slightly more likely to participate (33 percent turnout).

Although these figures present a common trend among young voters in the nation, 2025 presents a strategic opportunity to engage with young progressives across the state.

Thirteenth in a series interpreting the results of Iowa’s 2024 state and federal elections.

When the Iowa legislature reconvenes in Des Moines on January 13, fifteen state House members and six state senators will be sworn in for the first time. But one of them is marking more than a personal milestone.

Aime Wichtendahl will make history as Iowa’s first transgender state lawmaker. She starts her new job as a Democrat outnumbered by the largest GOP majority in the Iowa House since 1970. Not only that: House Republicans have recently approved or considered numerous bills that would discriminate against LGBTQ people broadly and transgender Iowans in particular. Wichtendahl has spoken against those bills in subcommittee meetings and at rallies.

Iowa’s first trans legislator spoke to Bleeding Heartland in November and December about her campaign, takeaways from the 2024 elections, and plans for legislative work.

Alexandra Nickolas-Dermody is Vice Chair of the Iowa Democratic Party’s Progressive Caucus, a longtime election strategist and organizer, and a lifelong Iowan. On December 31 she emailed this message to members of the Iowa Democratic Party’s State Central Committee, who will elect a state party chair for the next two years on January 4. Bleeding Heartland has not edited her text in any way.

Dear Central Committee Members and Iowa Democrats,

I hope this email finds you well. As a lifelong Democrat, Central Committee Member, and Vice Chair of the Progressive Caucus, I have had the privilege of working alongside many of you to build a stronger, more inclusive party. Today, I am reaching out to ask for your support in my candidacy for Chair of the Iowa Democratic Party.

Who I Am

For those I haven’t had the opportunity to meet personally, I’m Alexandra Nickolas-Dermody — a caregiver, election strategist and organizer, former non profit director, and working class Iowan. I’m a proud lifelong Iowan who has dedicated my life to empowering working-class folks, young voters, and marginalized communities. My work advocating for affordable housing, workers’ rights, LGBTQ+ equality, and reproductive freedom has prepared me to take on the challenges we face as a party.

Transgender or nonbinary Iowans under age 18 will soon have more help obtaining gender-affirming care out of state. In partnership with the LGBTQ advocacy group One Iowa, the North Carolina-based Campaign for Southern Equality is expanding its Trans Youth Emergency Project to Iowa, the groups announced on August 9. 

Republican lawmakers and Governor Kim Reynolds banned gender-affirming care (such as puberty blockers, hormone treatments, and surgery) for Iowa minors last year. More than two dozen GOP-controlled states have enacted similar laws. The Campaign for Southern Equality estimates that 38 percent of transgender youth nationally and 93 percent of those in the South live in states that ban gender-affirming care.

A news release explained that the Trans Youth Emergency Project provides “1-on-1 custom patient navigation services and supports families of transgender youth with emergency grants of $500, renewable every six months, to help them travel out of state for care.” The project has distributed “more than $500,000 in direct emergency grants to 1,000 families and individuals” in fifteen states since March 2023. After the expansion, grants will be available to families in 25 states.

“If you wish to enjoy civil rights, being able to act and behave civilly is a prerequisite,” State Representative Jeff Shipley tweeted on January 31, shortly after his latest effort to take civil rights protections away from transgender Iowans went down in flames.

Even for a practiced troll like Shipley, it was a remarkably ignorant and obnoxious statement.

Zach Spindler-Krage is a reporter for the Scarlet & Black, the student-run newspaper for Grinnell College. He is a third year political science student from Rochester, Minnesota and has written for the Minnesota Reformer, MinnPost, Post Bulletin, and Duluth News Tribune.

An exceptionally conservative presidential candidate. A distinctly liberal college. I probably should have recognized that Vivek Ramaswamy’s event in Grinnell was a recipe for disaster. 

If I had to hypothesize, I would guess Ramaswamy was prepared to capitalize on the politically-charged situation, strategically thinking of ways to engage young people who don’t hesitate to speak out against perceived injustices.

His interactions with students appeared to follow a formula. His goal was to evoke a reaction, often by remaining unemotional and uncaring while discussing important topics to students. Whether it was LGBTQ+ activists, public school supporters, or Ukrainian students, he knew how to solicit visceral responses, carefully documented by campaign staffers recording every interaction from multiple camera angles. With content in hand, he could take to social media, mischaracterizing interactions and ignoring facts.

Democratic State Senator Herman Quirmbach submitted the following written comments to members of the Boards and Commissions Review Committee. They are an extended version of remarks he delivered during the September 6 public hearing at the state capitol. You can view the committee’s draft recommendations here.

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Boards & Commissions Review Committee:

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you on September 6. What follows is a review and extension of my remarks.

I offer the following observations as a member of the Tobacco Use Prevention and Control Commission (Tobacco Commission) and of the College Student Aid Commission (CSAC). I have served on both these commissions for approximately twenty years as an ex-officio non-voting member. Both commissions oversee the implementation and administration of critical state programs to protect the public health (Tobacco) and enhance educational opportunities and workforce development (CSAC). Beyond the functioning of existing programs, members of the commissions provide exceptionally valuable expertise to help guide the development of public policy for the future.

Photo of Vivek Ramaswamy at the Iowa State Fair by Greg Hauenstein, whose other Iowa political photography can be found here.

“Good things are going to happen in this country, and it just might take a different generation to help lead us there,” Vivek Ramaswamy said a few minutes into his “fair-side chat” with Governor Kim Reynolds on August 12. The youngest candidate in the GOP presidential field (he turned 38 last week) regularly reminds audiences that he is the first millennial to run for president as a Republican.

Speaking to reporters after the chat, Ramaswamy asserted, “it takes a person of a different generation to reach the next generation.” He expressed doubt that “an octogenarian can reinspire and reignite pride in the next generation,” and said his “fresh legs” can reach young voters by “leading us to something” instead of “running from something.”

But the candidate’s talking points—especially the “ten commandments” that typically cap his stump speech—are a better fit for an older demographic than for the young voters Republicans have been alienating for the past 20 years.

Iowa City Council Member Shawn Harmsen represents Iowa City District B, which includes the east side of Iowa City and the recently closed DOT office.

In a move that will unevenly harm Black and other communities in the Iowa City area through lack of service and voting disenfranchisement, a major department of Governor Kim Reynolds’ administration executed a surprise move from an easily accessible location near several neighborhoods to a remote edge of another city.

The Iowa Department of Transportation sent out a press release on July 21 telling the public that after three more days in the Iowa City location it has inhabited for decades, that office would no longer be there. It was a classic Friday afternoon news dump before the start of RAGBRAI.

The press release claims the new location, out by Theisen’s and Costco on the very edge of Coralville, “was chosen after an extensive search for a space that could better accommodate the volume of customers in the area.”  Unsurprisingly, these claims of “needing more space” and providing better customer service don’t stand up under any kind of scrutiny. In fact, as I will explain, the relocation looks less like an inept move than attempt to conduct racial and partisan voter suppression.

Chuck Holden was born and raised in Iowa and is a history professor at St. Mary’s College of Maryland.

As readers of Bleeding Heartland know all too well, there are no signs that the hard-right GOP governing the state will stop its drastic reshaping of law and culture. Iowa, it appears, is competing with states like Texas and Florida for the title of most reactionary. But due to their size and much more diverse populations, Texas and Florida do not serve as good comparisons for a state like Iowa. Rather, Ireland in the mid-1900s, nearly all white and all conservative Christian, does.

The vision of Iowa that the state’s Republican leadership seems to have in mind is remarkably similar to that of the long-time Irish leader Éamon de Valera’s from the 1930s through the 1980s: lands of sturdy farms and humble, god-fearing families where “traditional” is worn as a badge of pride. But underneath the wholesome image one finds punitive regimes ever-alert to threats real or imagined of an encroaching modern world.

Alexandra Dermody is a Davenport based Gen Z activist, nonprofit director, and small business owner.

In the aftermath of the 2022 midterms, and with the 2024 elections fast approaching, the Iowa Democratic Party finds itself at a crucial juncture. With a series of losses in the state legislature and down-ballot offices, and a lack of diverse candidates, the party must address its shortcomings to regain momentum and build a more inclusive and modern base.

I’ll delve into the current and future prospects of the Iowa Democratic Party from my own perspective as a community organizer and activist, emphasizing the need for diversity, youth engagement, and policy alignment to revitalize its influence and win key seats.

Gerald Ott of Ankeny was a high school English teacher and for 30 years a school improvement consultant for the Iowa State Education Association.

I read in the Cedar Rapids Gazette that Iowa Senate Education Committee chair Ken Rozenboom told his colleagues, “We want everyone to be clear about the role that parents have in their child’s education.”

Rozenboom was floor managing Senate File 496, the wide-ranging education bill that originally came from the governor’s office. The Senate approved the bill March 22 on a party-line vote of 34 to sixteen. It’s now pending in the House Education Committee.

Among many provisions, the bill bans books that include a sex act (emphasis added). Erin Murphy reported for the Gazette,

UPDATE: The governor signed this bill on March 22. Original post follows.

Republicans took another step last week toward making the Iowa legislature’s 2023 session the worst ever for LGBTQ people. After letting similar bills die without committee approval as recently as 2021, the GOP fast-tracked legislation this year that prohibits transgender people from using the school restroom or locker room that corresponds to their gender identity.

The Iowa Senate passed the latest “bathroom bill,” Senate File 482, on March 7 in a party-line vote. The Iowa House approved the bill on March 16 by 57 votes to 39, with five Republicans (Chad Ingels, Megan Jones, Brian Lohse, Phil Thompson, and Hans Wilz) joining every Democrat present in opposition.

Governor Kim Reynolds is expected to sign the bill, along with legislation banning gender-affirming health care for minors. At this writing, neither bill has been forwarded to her office.

Iowa’s GOP trifecta won’t have the final word on the subject, however. Transgender plaintiffs have challenged restrictive bathroom policies in several states, and I expect one or more Iowa students to file suit soon after Senate File 482 goes into effect.

During the floor debates in the Iowa House and Senate, lawmakers pointed to key issues courts will consider as they weigh the bill’s stated goal (protecting students’ privacy) against its adverse impact on a specific group (students whose sex listed on a birth certificate does not match their gender identity).

UPDATE: The governor signed this bill on March 22. Original post follows.

Moving with unusual speed last week, Iowa Republican lawmakers approved Senate File 538, which broadly prohibits gender-affirming care, including puberty blockers, hormone treatments, and surgery, for Iowans under age 18.

Governor Kim Reynolds is expected to sign the bill soon, having used several opportunities over the past year to position herself against transgender youth.

The new law would certainly be challenged in court, as similar bans prompted lawsuits in Arkansas and Alabama.

During hours-long debates in the Iowa Senate and House, lawmakers raised points that would be central to litigation over whether banning gender-affirming care violates the constitutional rights of transgender children, their parents, and medical professionals.

For this post, I’ve pulled video clips to illustrate some of the core legal questions surrounding the bill. But there is much more of value in the passionate speeches delivered about Republicans’ latest attempt to target LGTBQ Iowans. You can watch the full Senate debate here (starting around 7:32:30) and the House debate here (starting around 1:40:45).

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

Everyone probably remembers the junior high or high school bully.  The one who terrorized vulnerable kids, who dressed a little differently or didn’t say the right things. The ones who didn’t fit in. Those perceived as “other.”

Every school had a bully.

The only thing worse than a lone bully is a group of them trying to outdo each other. Then it becomes a competition to see who can punch down harder on their victims. When bullying escalates, the environment deteriorates. 

Steve Corbin is emeritus professor of marketing at the University of Northern Iowa and a freelance writer who receives no remuneration, funding, or endorsement from any for-profit business, nonprofit organization, political action committee, or political party.      

“Just the facts, ma’am,” was the infamous introductory phrase Sgt. Joe Friday would use when interrogating a witness in the whodunit TV series Dragnet. Jack Webb (1920-1982) played Sgt. Friday during Dragnet’s lifespan from 1951 to 1959.

Dragnet’s civil servant show often dealt with complex social issues. Let’s apply Sgt. Friday’s flat and concise “just the facts, ma’am” line to the current book banning craze before offering an opinion.

As the Iowa legislature’s first “funnel” deadline approaches, Republicans have introduced more than 30 bills targeting the LGBTQ community, roughly double the previous record. More than a dozen of those bills have either advanced from a subcommittee or have cleared a standing committee and are therefore eligible for debate in the Iowa House or Senate.

Until recently, the vast majority of bills threatening LGBTQ Iowans never received a subcommittee hearing. During the 2021 legislative session, none of the fifteen bills in that category made it through the first funnel (requiring approval by a House or Senate committee), and only a handful were even assigned to a subcommittee. Bills consigned to the scrap heap included proposed bans on gender-affirming care for transgender youth and so-called “bathroom bills,” which require transgender people to use school restrooms or locker rooms that correspond to the sex listed on their birth certificate, rather than the facilities that match their gender identity.

In contrast, this week House and Senate subcommittees rushed to pass bathroom bills and measures prohibiting gender-affirming care for minors less than 24 hours after the bills appeared on the Iowa legislature’s website.

How did these policies become a priority for Republican lawmakers in such a short time?

Three factors seem most important.

Aime Wichtendahl is a member of the Hiawatha City Council and first openly trans woman elected to government in Iowa.

When Iowa Republicans gained a trifecta in 2017, I told our city manager, “I don’t know what their economic agenda is, but I bet it has something to do with gay marriage and abortion.”

Fast forward six years and little has changed—except the legislature devotes extra time attacking transgender youth to feed their lives into the never-ending culture war dumpster fire.

Sixth in a series interpreting the results of Iowa’s 2022 state and federal elections. This post has been updated to include numbers from the Iowa Secretary of State’s revised statewide statistical report, issued on January 27.

The Iowa Secretary of State’s office recently published the statewide statistical report on the 2022 general election. Republicans enacted many new barriers to early voting in 2021, which meant that compared to previous elections, Iowans had fewer days to request absentee ballots, fewer days to vote early by any means, and less time to return absentee ballots to county auditors. It was also much harder for Iowans to deliver another person’s completed absentee ballot, and each county could have only one drop box.

As expected, fewer Iowans voted early. The decline wasn’t spread evenly across the electorate.

RJ Miller is an advocate, activist, and executive director of Greater Opportunities Inc, a Des Moines-based nonprofit. He was an independent candidate for the Iowa House in 2022.

I’m running for the at-large Des Moines City Council seat now held by Carl Voss, because I believe the council needs more diversity and more council members who come from a grassroots background, for and from the people they represent.

I’m running because our city needs real leadership. Des Moines needs someone who will unify and truly fight for the people’s best interests. Residents deserve someone who will fight against gentrification, redlining, and eminent domain. More important, the city deserves an anti-sellout, anti-establishment councilman.

Dan Guild is a lawyer and project manager who lives in New Hampshire. In addition to writing for Bleeding Heartland, he has written for CNN and Sabato’s Crystal Ball. He also contributed to the Washington Post’s 2020 primary simulations. Follow him on Twitter @dcg1114.

The U.S. Supreme Court released its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health on June 24. Overturning Roe v Wade caused a political earthquake.

I created this table to show the magnitude of the change in the generic ballot (which asks voters whether they plan to support a Democrat or a Republican for Congress). My averages differ from sites like FiveThirtyEight and RealClearPolitics, because I compare results across time from each pollster, rather than averaging all polls at a point in time. (I will explain why this matters at the end of this article.)

All three U.S. House Republicans from Iowa voted this week against a bill that would provide a federal guarantee of access to contraception.

But if Iowans encounter any mainstream news coverage of the issue, they may come away with the mistaken impression that GOP Representatives Ashley Hinson and Mariannette Miller-Meeks took a stand for contraception access.

The episode illustrates an ongoing problem in the Iowa media landscape: members of Congress have great influence over how their work is covered.

The Linn County Board of Supervisors voted on June 13 to “prohibit any efforts by service providers to change sexual orientation and/or gender identity of minors, including conversion and reparative therapy,” in unincorporated areas of the county.

“Conversion therapy” refers to efforts to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity and has been widely discredited as ineffective and traumatizing for youth. Associations representing medical professionals, counselors, and therapists have denounced the practice for many years.

Supervisor Stacey Walker led efforts to pass the ordinance, and Supervisor Ben Rogers (also a Democrat) provided the second vote in favor. When the board considered the third and final reading, Walker said the policy “will save lives” and described it as “a moral imperative for all policymakers who take seriously their job of protecting the health and welfare of the people.”

Early voting for Iowa’s June 7 primary begins on May 18. Democrats have one contested race for a federal office (Abby Finkenauer, Mike Franken, and Glenn Hurst are running for U.S. Senate) and one for a statewide office (Joel Miller and Eric Van Lancker are running for secretary of state). There are also many competitive primaries for Iowa House or Senate seats.

Turnout for this year’s primary will likely be much lower this year than in 2020, when Secretary of State Paul Pate sent every active registered voter an absentee ballot request form. In addition, a law Republicans enacted last year shortened Iowa’s early voting window from 29 days to 20 days and made it harder to return a completed ballot in time to have the vote counted.

Even so, more than 100,000 Democrats will likely participate in the June 7 election. I analyzed statistics and results from the last three cycles for clues on who Iowa Democratic primary voters are and where most of them live.

Iowa Republicans have sought to undermine LGBTQ equality for more than a decade, but in recent years, their myriad attempts to discriminate didn’t make it past the legislature’s first “funnel” deadline.

However, this year Republicans moved bills out of Iowa House and Senate committees that would prohibit transgender girls and women from participating in school sports. The bills are eligible for debate in both chambers.

The legislation is a priority for Governor Kim Reynolds, who declared during a Fox News town hall last spring that she was committed to acting on the issue. She has repeatedly claimed preventing trans girls from competing is a matter of “fairness,” a talking point echoed by Republican lawmakers who defended the bills last week.

Their stated concerns don’t extend to Iowa’s transgender girls and women, who would find yet another door slammed in their face.

Iowa Supreme Court Chief Justice Susan Christensen is forming a task force to undertake a “holistic and comprehensive” review of the juvenile justice system, Iowa’s Director of Juvenile Court Services Chad Jensen announced on December 14.

Speaking at the annual Summit on Justice and Disparities in Ankeny, Jensen explained that Iowa’s juvenile justice system is decentralized among multiple entities and governmental agencies. Some stakeholders have introduced “courageous initiatives” to improve the system in recent years. “While good intentioned,” he added, those programs and services “do have ramifications throughout the entire system.”

The task force will “review the alignment, governance structure, and the funding of Iowa’s juvenile justice system.” Members will also attempt to identify “decision points” that fuel racial, ethnic, or gender disparities for Iowa youth, and develop proposals to improve those outcomes.

On this Transgender Day of Remembrance, I should be writing about the 46 transgender or gender non-conforming people who have been killed in the United States so far in 2021—the most recorded in a single year. Most of those murder victims were people of color; young Black trans women are especially at risk.

Iowa Republicans didn’t speak out today for ensuring the safety or equality of trans or gender-nonconforming people. When GOP politicians acknowledge LGBTQ Iowans exist, it’s usually to portray them (and any attempt to accommodate them) as a threat to straight white Christians, whom Republicans value above all others.

Governor Kim Reynolds scored points with her base by scapegoating trans athletes in the spring. More recently, conservative politicians and their activist allies have demanded that high school libraries remove books that explore sexual themes, especially queer sexuality. They are also targeting books by authors of color that supposedly contain obscenity or portray some institutions in a negative way.

Iowa Senate President Jake Chapman announced this week that he is having legislation drafted “to create a new felony offense” in Iowa for educators who disseminate “what I believe to be obscene material.” Chapman promised his bill will have “additional mechanisms to force prosecutions or allow civil remedies.”

No state in the country has placed a higher proportion of Black youth in juvenile facilities than Iowa, according to a new Sentencing Project analysis. The Black youth placement rate in Iowa was more than double the national average in 2019, and young African Americans in Iowa were nearly nine times as likely as their white peers to be committed to facilities such as “detention centers, residential treatment centers, group homes, and youth prisons.”

Josh Rovner was the lead author of Black Disparities in Youth Incarceration, which the Sentencing Project published on July 15. The two-page report included statistics on youth placement in Washington, DC and the 36 states where at least 8,000 residents are African Americans between the ages of 10 and 17.

Governor Kim Reynolds thrilled conservatives when she announced on Fox News last week that she wants to sign a bill banning transgender youth from competing on sports teams not matching their gender assigned at birth.

Defending the discriminatory policy during a news conference on May 5, Reynolds claimed five times that concerns about “fairness” are driving her commitment to address the issue.

This mean-spirited play to the GOP base has several dimensions. None of them are grounded in fairness.

First in a series on where things stand after the Iowa legislature’s first “funnel” deadline.

State lawmakers set a depressing record this year for attempting to undermine the rights of LGBTQ Iowans.

Although all fifteen of those bills failed to meet a key legislative deadline last week, three had previously made it through Iowa Senate subcommittees. And none were condemned by Governor Kim Reynolds or GOP leaders in the House or Senate.

Until powerful Republicans disavow efforts to target the LGBTQ community, queer Iowans and particularly trans Iowans face the prospect of more attacks in the GOP-controlled legislature.

Bryce Smith chairs the Dallas County Democrats. promoted by Laura Belin

As a young Iowan, I got active in Democratic politics during the 2012 re-election of President Obama.  Obama inspired me, and to this day, I find joy and comfort in knowing my volunteerism within his campaign made a difference for so many across Iowa and the country.

I have remained active in Democratic politics since 2012, even running for the Iowa House in 2016. Although I came up short in that election, the campaign pushed me to become even more engaged in the Democratic Party. Since 2017, I have been humbled to be the chair of the Dallas County Democrats. I have found great joy in working with fellow Democrats from across the state to better our party, grow together, elect Democrats and fight the good fight.

Tanner Halleran is a college student, chair of the Keokuk County Democrats, and 2nd Vice Chair of the Iowa Democratic Party. -promoted by Laura Belin

About Me & My Political Background 

For those reading this post, I will personally know some of you and be unknown to others. I include this section to give you insight into my life—past & present—so that by the end, you can hopefully have a better sense of my character, my determination, and grit for/within this party.

Dan Guild digs into polling data for clues on how big an opportunity the youth vote represents–not just in Iowa, but in every close race across the county. -promoted by Laura Belin

In the aftermath of 2016, the press focused on a number of reasons for Hillary Clinton’s defeat. Rural voters were appropriately at the center of that discussion. Less discussed was what happened with those under age 30.

In the aftermath of that election, I researched the impact of young voters. I found that had Clinton carried the youth vote by the same margin as Barack Obama, she would have won 306 electoral votes.   

Exit poll data on the youth vote isn’t perfect, but even with its limitations, evidence suggests the decline in Democratic support among those between the ages of 18 and 29 was arguably the decisive factor in how Democratic margins declined from 2012 to 2016. 

More than a third of Donald Trump’s margin was made up from defections among those under 30 years of age. In Iowa, he won the youth vote.

Nate Monson is executive director of Iowa Safe Schools. -promoted by Laura Belin

Collective trauma refers to the impact of a terrible experience that affects a group of people. Collective trauma is what we all are experiencing this year.

Our country has experienced collective trauma in the past but at no time have we had a pandemic, racial injustice, the derecho, a very divisive election, and an economic crisis larger than the Great Recession all at the same time.

“Much of the spread that we’re seeing in Iowa continues to be tied back to young adults” between the ages of 19 and 24, Governor Kim Reynolds said during an August 27 news conference, where she announced a new proclamation closing bars in Polk, Dallas, Linn, Johnson, Story, and Black Hawk counties.

Reynolds noted that young adults are spreading coronavirus to classmates, co-workers, and others “by socializing in large groups” and “not social distancing.” She added, “While we still know that this population is less likely to be severely impacted by COVID-19, it is increasing the virus activity in the community, and it’s spilling over to other segments of the population.”

The official narrative seems designed to conceal three inconvenient facts. Reynolds didn’t follow expert advice that could have prevented this summer’s explosive growth in cases. For months, she discouraged young, healthy Iowans from worrying about the virus. And despite her “#StepUpMaskUp” public relations campaign, Reynolds has failed to practice what she preaches when attending large gatherings herself.

Preethi Reddi highlights efforts to change the Shenandoah school district’s curriculum and policies in order to address a “culture of non-inclusion.” -promoted by Laura Belin

From my experience growing up in rural Iowa, I know the appeals of a small town. From the moment my family moved to Shenandoah, I knew we would become a part of an extended family. However, as a predominantly white community, Shenandoah can also be exclusionary to Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC).

To address this concern, Shenandoah schools alumni, including myself, have recently developed a petition with more than 600 signatures, urging school administrators to make the commitment to racial justice numerous other school districts have made.

More Iowans than ever participated in the 2020 primary, and the event changed some features of the Iowa electorate. For the first time in at least 20 years, people who choose not to affiliate with any party don’t comprise a plurality of registered voters. Democrats and Republicans both outnumber no-party voters now.

In other ways, the 529,586 Iowans who cast ballots in the June 2 election resembled past primary voters. For instance, nearly three-quarters of them were at least 50 years old, while about 13 percent were under age 35. Those proportions by age group are remarkably close to corresponding figures from the 2018 primary, when only 288,749 Iowans voted.

Follow me after the jump for a closer look at this year’s expanded voter universe by party, gender, and age.

Rachel Junck became the second Iowa State University student elected to the Ames City Council this week, winning the runoff election in Ward 4 by 723 votes (55.1 percent) to 589 votes (44.9 percent) according to unofficial results.

Not only did Junck beat a two-term incumbent with strong ties in the business community, her supporters helped push total turnout on December 3 (1,313 votes) higher than the 1,220 who cast ballots in the ward on November 5. Ask anyone who has worked on local campaigns: that almost never happens.

How did she do it? Junck made time for a telephone interview with Bleeding Heartland on December 5.

Nate Monson: “When Pete talks about his plans and vision for our country, I see four years of hope for a more united country where everyone can be part of the solution to our nation’s most urgent challenges.” -promoted by Laura Belin

Since 2007, I have served as the Executive Director for Iowa Safe Schools, one of the largest statewide LGBTQ organizations in the country. Our job is to create safe and supportive schools and communities for LGBTQ youth through education, advocacy, outreach, and direct services.

I believe every single candidate running on the Democratic side supports equality without question. But when I look at the 2020 field, only one candidate is working to build a culture of belonging in this country and that is Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

Isabelle Brace of Des Moines is the state press organizer for Iowa Climate Strike. -promoted by Laura Belin

Des Moines area students, community members, and youth organizers banded together at the Iowa Capitol on September 20 to strike from school and work, demanding comprehensive action against climate change. This strike started off a week of action and solidarity around the world.