Ed Tibbetts, a longtime reporter and editor in the Quad-Cities, is the publisher of the Along the Mississippi newsletter, where this post first appeared. Find more of his work at edtibbetts.substack.com.

Three weeks ago, I wrote that Iowa’s future might look like Missouri’s.

Let’s hope this is the case. At least in one respect: this month, Missouri voters overwhelmingly rejected a plan to eliminate state income taxes and authorize higher sales taxes to replace the lost revenues.

Voters in Missouri clearly disliked the idea. Roughly 83 percent (yes, 83 percent!) rejected the plan, which had been supported by the state’s Republican leadership and well-heeled donors, who spent millions of dollars to try to pass the scheme. The opposition was so broad, the measure lost in every county.

As I noted last month, the Missouri plan, called Amendment 5, has many similarities to the effort now being supported by Republicans and the special interests in Iowa to pass a new constitutional amendment that would eventually lead to a higher sales tax here.

A new poll conducted for Chris Jones’ campaign shows the Democratic challenger is “within striking distance” of Republican Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig and leads the incumbent after respondents read information about both candidates.

Change Research conducted the poll on behalf of Jones’ campaign from July 28 to August 1 and published key findings in a memo provided to Bleeding Heartland.

Naig led Jones by 42 percent to 40 percent in the first ballot test, before respondents heard biographies of either candidate. That’s within the margin of error (+/- 3.1 percentage points) for the survey of 1,071 likely general election voters. Some 16 percent said they were unsure.

After respondents read background information about both contenders, Jones led Naig by 46 percent to 40 percent, with 13 percent unsure.

Jones told me the poll backs up what he’s seen on the campaign trail: “Iowans are fed up with the status quo and ready for change.”

Naig’s campaign has not released any internal polling. But several signs point to Republican anxiety about the secretary of agriculture race.

Since the demise of the Des Moines Register’s Iowa Poll, we have rarely seen snapshots of Iowa voters not connected to any campaign or group planning to spend heavily on behalf of one candidate.

So it’s worth digging into the numbers Emerson College Polling/Nexstar Media released on August 6 after surveying 712 “likely voters” from August 2 through August 4. The toplines show Democrat Rob Sand leading the governor’s race and Republican Ashley Hinson slightly ahead (but within the poll’s margin of error) in the U.S. Senate race. Let’s look under the hood.

State Representative Derek Wulf has experienced a remarkable reversal of fortune since becoming the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor in June. A month ago, he was facing possible foreclosure and default judgments for multiple creditors seeking repayment of six-figure debts.

Iowa court filings indicate that since GOP gubernatorial nominee Zach Lahn chose his running mate, Wulf received a bridge loan, which allowed him to repay at least one major debt, and possibly more. In addition, an unnamed lender may be willing to refinance the obligations that prompted Wulf’s bank to file a foreclosure petition in May.

Neither Wulf’s attorney nor a spokesperson for Lahn’s campaign has responded to detailed questions about who has provided bridge financing, offered collateral to secure a new loan, or agreed to guarantee new loans. At this writing, it’s unclear whether those offering Wulf a financial lifeline include Lahn, any member of Lahn’s family, any donor to Lahn’s campaign, or anyone Iowa law would prohibit from making a gift to state legislators and candidates.

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 

The heavy summer air almost suffocated 10-year-old me as I shuffled into the dark woods clutching an open bag. My older friends coaxed me into a snipe hunt. They barely suppressed giggles as they explained I’d have to be patient, and a flashlight would scare the snipe away. 

I stood shaking with an open bag. My friends evaporated into the night. I hadn’t asked the right questions. I trusted them. Things weren’t the same as they appeared.

I was left holding the bag.

With an election approaching, voters need to ask the hard questions, or we’ll all be left holding the bag and the unfunny joke will be on us. Here are some questions for Zach Lahn, the Republican nominee for governor.

Nick Covington is an Iowa parent who taught high school social studies for ten years.

Iowans today find their rights limited by private, partisan, and parochial interests, where the in-group gets the freedom to flourish and the out-group is free to leave.

State logo and slogan adopted by the Reynolds administration in 2023

Iowa Republican candidates and elected officials have been quick to claim the mantle of “culture” and “heritage” in our state. Back in February, then Iowa Republican gubernatorial candidate, Zach Lahn told Tucker Carlson, “the primary catalyst for me doing this was I believe we are losing our culture and our heritage as a people. That’s my honest belief…Are the traditions and the heritage and the value[s] of our ancestors important to us?”

President Donald Trump now says he wasn’t “given the proper information” before he endorsed U.S. Representative Randy Feenstra for governor, days before Iowa’s primary election.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on June 11, Trump bragged about his “amazing track record” in GOP primaries, claiming, “Every time I endorse, they win.”

A journalist followed up to ask whether the president regretted backing Feenstra in Iowa.

Dan Piller was a business reporter for more than four decades, working for the Des Moines Register and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He covered the oil and gas industry while in Texas and was the Register’s agriculture reporter before his retirement in 2013. He lives in Ankeny.

With the post-primary pause, it’s time for a candid chat about the state of political fashion, and I don’t mean left-right, progressive-conservative trends. I’m talking about the way our male candidates dress.

(I learned years ago to avoid commentary on women’s clothing except to note they are beautiful. Besides, women politicos today tend to dress very well. More about that later. For now, it’s the men I wonder about).

Keith Schneider, a former New York Times national correspondent, is senior editor for Circle of Blue, where this column was first published. He has reported on the contest for energy, food, and water in the era of climate change from six continents. 

Expect the unexpected.

That’s the only certainty of planting season across the Corn Belt. Heat. Frost. Insects. Too much rain, or none at all. Now add the distress the Trump administration has cursed farmers with: Broken markets. Tariffs. Rising fuel costs.

Never, though, has the unexpected included this spring’s surprise: serious consideration of the harm from industrial crop and animal production. Farming’s mammoth water pollution and its consequences for public health are on the ballot in Iowa, where the primary election occurs today.

Candidates of both parties for governor and secretary of agriculture have included among their campaign priorities Iowa’s rising cancer incidence and the nitrate water contamination that may well be responsible. For the first time, the health and environmental damage from farming has moved from the margins to the center of political priorities in Iowa, an agriculture colossus that is the nation’s largest grain and pork producer.

Phoebe Wall Howard is an award-winning reporter who worked for The Des Moines Register, covering organized labor and politics. She now writes the Shifting Gears newsletter on Substack and is a member of the Iowa Writers Collaborative. This article first appeared on Deep Midwest: Politics and Culture.

Warning: This column includes language that may be offensive or upsetting to a person unaccustomed to graphic terms or profanity.

With fewer than 48 hours until the polls open for the Iowa primary election, I read with interest about the heated race for governor among Republicans.

President Trump breathlessly weighed into the race with his Truth Social account on Friday, May 29: “Randy is MAGA all the way! … Randy Feenstra has my Complete and Total Endorsement to be the next Governor of Iowa — RANDY WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!”

When I was driving around western Iowa in April — from Iowa City over to Carroll up to Storm Lake and back to Denison — you couldn’t help but notice Feenstra signs dotting the manicured front lawns.

Yet political reporter Laura Belin headlined her piece on May 31, “As Feenstra sinks, GOP establishment hits panic button. Even with Trump’s backing, Feenstra could lose.”

The warning signs were there for months. This week, they became impossible to ignore.

Hours after a new poll showed U.S. Representative Randy Feenstra trailing rival Republican candidate Zach Lahn, President Donald Trump gave Feenstra his coveted “Complete and Total Endorsement” for governor on May 29. In a Truth Social post, Trump declared Feenstra to be “MAGA all the way!” and promised, “RANDY WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!”

Trump has sometimes jumped on the bandwagon of candidates poised to win their primaries. But this intervention looks more like a salvage operation.

The wildest part is, Feenstra could still lose the June 2 primary. He is that bad a candidate.

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 

Dad was a master carpenter. He didn’t graduate from vocational school, wasn’t an apprentice, and he didn’t have a framed certificate announcing his skill. He learned by doing.

For him, “Measure twice and cut once” wasn’t an old platitude. It’s what he lived by, and it made him a master of his trade. He believed consequential planning avoids unintended consequences, and jobs that look simple often aren’t.

Now it appears the U.S. is being led by people who don’t even measure once.

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 

Some mysteries are difficult to solve. For example, in this classic story problem: “Train A leaves from Chicago for Toledo at 70 miles an hour. Simultaneously Train B leaves Toledo for Chicago at 60 miles per hour. The distance between the cities is 260 miles when do they meet?”

Sure, there’s a mathematical formula to figure it out, but as a distracted 7^th grader I never conquered it.  There were just too many other important questions needing answers. Why is the Chicago train faster? Is there a headwind between Toledo and Chicago or are trains just built slower in Ohio? Who are the people traveling? Why do we want those trains to meet? Are they on the same track? If so, isn’t that the real story and the real problem?

After reading about the recent Iowa Republican gubernatorial primary debate, there’s no mystery about why Iowa’s public schools are at risk. Four of the five contenders are sticking to an old formula that’s put Iowa public schools in jeopardy and caused teachers and future teachers to look for an exit.