The campaign for Iowa Senate District 1 lasted two months and cost more than $100,000 in total campaign spending and involved tens of thousands of volunteers. And as of last Tuesday, the Democrat stands as the winner, breaking the GOP supermajority in the Iowa Senate and flipping the seat from R to D.
Iowa Democrats’ campaign speeches sound different this year as the party attempts to win back voters they have lost in the state over the past decade.
Republican state Rep. Bobby Kaufmann will help lead his party’s supermajority after Iowa House Republicans elected him as majority leader Monday morning. He replaces former House Majority Leader Matt Windschitl, of Missouri Valley, who stepped down from his leadership role to focus on his campaign for Iowa’s 4th Congressional District.
Republican Party of Iowa Chairman Jeff Kaufmann kicked off a party fundraiser Friday by stressing to the crowd that Rob Sand, the Iowa State Auditor and only statewide elected Democrat, is “running away from his left-wing views” as he runs for governor in the 2026 election, which is more than 15 months away.
As the headlining speaker of the Republican Party of Iowa’s Lincoln Dinner, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin told a crowd of more than 200 people how he became Virginia’s first statewide-elected Republican in 12 years and how Republicans can gain more ground in traditionally blue states.
Also in the Campaign Almanac, Rob Sand announces 100-stop town hall tour
U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, in Cedar Rapids for a Republican Party of Iowa fundraiser Thursday, questioned President Donald Trump’s authority to unilaterally impose tariffs on other countries by edict, and applauded a federal court ruling blocking Trump from imposing sweeping tariffs on imports under an emergency-powers law.
Also, Democratic candidates announce endorsements for their 2026 campaigns
Jeff Kaufmann has been Iowa Republicans’ state party leader since 2015. In that decade, Iowa Republicans have gone from sharing control of state and federal government in Iowa with Democrats to near unfettered control and historic majorities.
The first President Bush appointed Cedar Rapids Republican to Malta post in 1989
In a surprise upset Tuesday, a Democrat won the Jan. 28 special election to fill an open seat in the …
Republican Party of Iowa chairman Jeff Kaufmann, who has not yet decided whether to run for another term, expressed confidence that Iowa Republicans will not lose their first-in-the-nation caucus status as have Iowa Democrats
New polling released Saturday of likely Iowa voters suggests Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris now leads Republican former president Donald Trump in a state both parties had all but written off.
Technicalities can have significant consequences
A Republican will not appear on the fall ballot to challenge a Democratic incumbent for a local statehouse seat after the chair of a Linn County GOP special nominating convention refused to certify the results.
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