Kim Reynolds gives Democrats a chance at redemption
They must not squander it.
Kim Reynolds gave Iowa Democrats a gift last week.
The governor’s decision not to seek re-election has the potential to reset the table in this state’s politics.
It’s no secret, Iowa Democrats have done miserably over the last decade. It’s not just losing to Donald Trump twice, but they’ve fallen far behind Republicans in voter registrations, they’re in the minority in the state legislature and our congressional delegation is all-Republican.
Even when their party peers have done well, the Democratic Party in Iowa has faltered. In 2022, while Democrats nationwide were beating expectations in the midterms, Iowa Democrats were being trounced. Reynolds won re-election by almost 19 points, a victory that devastated Democrats down the ballot.
But now, thanks to Reynolds’ decision, there’s a chance at a reset. The governor would have been hard to defeat next year. In general, it’s much more difficult to run against an incumbent than a newcomer. And despite Reynolds’ praise for the GOP’s “dynamic bench,” none of her potential successors are as well known; and none, I believe, would be as popular, either.
In Laura Belin’s Bleeding Heartland column, she points to a number of possible candidates for the GOP nomination. Among them: Attorney General Brenna Bird; Matt Whitaker, a Trump administration official; and US Rep. Zach Nunn. Former state Rep. Brad Sherman has already said he’s running.
As fascinating as a GOP primary might be, I am more eagerly awaiting the Democrats’ choice. If they don’t pick the right person, someone who can win in a formerly purple state that now is full-on red, they will have squandered an opportunity to change the balance of power in this state and will probably be relegated to backbencher status for years to come.
The stakes are high.
Democrats need a primary
Belin writes that Democrat Rob Sand, the state auditor, would be the favorite to win the party’s nomination, and this is probably true. But if he seeks the nomination, I hope he doesn’t run unopposed.
I have nothing against Sand. But I believe primaries are good for parties, and I think it would be especially good for Iowa Democrats. Over the past several years, Democrats have been bit players in the state’s political drama. Republicans have dominated, and the debates have often been on terrain friendly to them. A well-publicized primary would give Democrats a chance to road-test their priorities and point to the failures of the ruling party.
They are many.
Iowa’s economy is clearly struggling compared to the rest of the country. The state’s inflation-adjusted Gross Domestic Product actually declined by 0.5% in 2024. North Dakota was the only other state that saw its economy shrink. Apologists for Iowa’s poor economic record have tried to fob it off as a short-term thing, or they’ve tried to shift the blame to Joe Biden.
Don’t be fooled. Since Kim Reynolds became governor in mid-2017, Iowa’s inflation-adjusted GDP has stagnated. Between the end of 2017 and 2024, GDP has grown by just 7.5%, or 1% per year.
Reynolds’ economy fails not only in comparison with the rest of the nation, but she falls short of her predecessors, too. According to a report by the Legislative Services Agency, Iowa’s nominal GDP, as a share of the US economy, has shrunk dramatically on Reynolds’ watch.
“Iowa’s share of U.S. GDP is currently at its lowest measure since the current federal statistics became available in 1997. Iowa’s share of the U.S. economy has decreased in seven of the past nine years,” the LSA report said.
That means while other states are gaining, Iowa is falling behind.
That’s not all. Iowans’ incomes have suffered, too.
Since the end of 2017 and the end of 2023, real median household incomes in Iowa only rose by 4.1%, according to the US Census Bureau. That trails the national rate, and even the rate in Illinois, a state Reynolds loves to lampoon. Illinois’ real median household income rose by 8.8%, more than twice as fast as Iowa’s, during that same period.
This shouldn’t be surprising. Reynolds has been busy rewarding political allies with tax cuts designed to favor the wealthy and a voucher-by-another name program that funnels hundreds of millions of state tax dollars to reimburse private school families for their expenses. Meanwhile, the state’s economic foundations decay.
Population growth stagnates. Job growth lags the rest of the nation.
What’s more, the governor and her party have failed to make much progress even in the areas crucial to our economy that they themselves define as priorities.
GOP fails Iowans on childcare
Take childcare. In a state with a high percentage of dual working couples, affordable childcare is vitally important. Without it, people can’t enter the workforce. And in most cases in this low-wage state, it takes two working parents to make ends meet.
Yet even though this has been a Reynolds priority for years, she’s done little more than plod along.
A study on the website of Common Sense Institute Iowa, a business- friendly group, says the state has trimmed the childcare shortage by just 8.7% since 2018. The difference in the number of kids under 12 and the number of childcare slots available declined from about 362,000 in 2018 to 330,000 in 2024.
That’s over six years!
Then there’s the state labor force. Reynolds and company have used state power to try to squeeze the population into accepting low-paying jobs in the private sector. But it isn’t working.
Since she became governor, Iowa’s labor force participation rate has shrunk, from 68.8% in 2017 to 67% in 2025.
Other Midwestern states have also experienced this problem to varying degrees. But Reynolds’ hardline policies, along with Iowa’s economic limitations, make the state even less attractive to the workers we need to reverse this trend. Just witness the young people who continue to leave Iowa, including college students who have been noticeably more eager in recent years to flee the state once they graduate. This makes Iowa ever more reliant on an aging workforce.
Here’s the point: On the economy, Republicans have failed us. They’re delivering small tax cuts to regular Iowans (and big tax cuts to the rich, while skimping on needed services). But when it comes to the economy that we all depend upon, they’re just not getting the job done.
We need new thinking, and it is crucial that Democrats pick the right person who can draw attention to these failures and offer credible ideas to change course.
These aren’t the only drawbacks of the Reynolds era, of course. She is needlessly divisive. She picks fights with the powerless. She’s ignored the state’s substandard water quality. She’s skimped on public school investments. She signed a law that led to the banning of thousands of books. She’s sided with a nursing home industry that has many documented failures. She’s failed thousands of elderly and disabled Iowans who have struggled for years to get basic care.
Meanwhile, Iowa continues to have some of the highest cancer rates in the nation, but only this year did Reynolds get around to suggesting the Legislature spend $1 million to study the problem.
Then there’s the party’s flat tax. It has yielded a historic $900 million budget deficit that the so-called conservatives in this state intend to address with one-time reserve funds.
I’ve said it before: Kim Reynolds is a skilled politician. There is no doubt about that. But she’s a lousy governor.
Last week, she gave Iowa Democrats a gift by announcing she won’t run for re-election. Now, it’s up to them not to blow this golden opportunity.
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Good Points!