Nathan Sage pitches working-class authenticity in Iowa Senate bid after statewide tour

IOWA CITY — Speaking to a room of about 70 people at ReUnion Brewing Wednesday night for his second-to-last town hall of a statewide “99 Counties in 99 Days” swing, Iowa Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Nathan Sage cast himself as an everyman on a shoestring campaign, arguing Iowa needs a fighter who looks and lives like the people he hopes to represent.

Sage introduced himself the way he often does on the trail: “Marine, soldier, mechanic, sports radio host and former executive director of the Knoxville Chamber of Commerce.” He added, “more than anything, I’m just a poor kid that grew up on the west side of Mason City, in a trailer park.”

Since launching his barnstorming tour in August, Sage said he has logged more than 10,000 miles and appeared at over 130 events.

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What he’s hearing — and how it’s shaping the campaign

In an interview with The Gazette, Sage said the months on the road have been clarifying. “Well, I met with a lot of people, and they’re all fearful or they’re angry, right?” he said, citing worries about tariffs, Medicaid cuts to rural hospitals, water quality and increasing cancer rates.

What Iowans want most, he said, is “change,” “opportunity” and “fighters.”

“More than anything [it’s] driven … that fact that we need working-class people more than anything to represent us,” Sage said.

He offered personal stories that, he said, reinforced his decision to run: a friend in Cedar Rapids who “talked about losing his insurance … he’s in a wheelchair and didn’t know what he was going to do,” and a woman in Rockwell City on Medicaid who fears losing coverage and the closure of her rural hospital.

“That’s where you get that worry and that anger from,” Sage said.

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Policy through a working-class lens

Sage told the crowd his platform starts with affordability: Raising the federal minimum wage, lowering health care and prescription drug costs, strengthening rural hospitals, and cleaning up Iowa’s water.

“We have to make life more affordable,” he said, arguing “the number one thing we need to do … if we want to have our country back, is overturn Citizens United and get big money out of politics.”

Pressed on specifics, Sage said the current $7.25 federal minimum wage is untenable, but he wants to consult data and experts on the target number. “It seems like we have to be over $20 an hour … [but] I need to do more information, more research to know what we need to get there.”

On student loans, he criticized “predatory loans” and said college must be “affordable,” while expanding noncollege pathways like apprenticeships.

When asked about gun reform, Sage described himself as “an advocate for gun safety” and “common sense gun laws.” He said he supports restrictions on assault-style weapons — “nobody needs an AR-15” — but added that practicality must guide the conversation.

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“But I’d like to see the measure of how we get to that stage, right?” he said. “I’d like to make it practical for people … How do we make it where we’re not necessarily taking things away from people, but we’re just protecting ourselves and making it where they can actually make it happen … I need to learn more about how we can make it practical for that.”

Agriculture and water quality were recurring themes. Pointing to research he’s discussed with academics and farm groups, Sage said Iowa’s eroding topsoil and heavier rains are accelerating nitrate runoff into streams. He floated subsidizing farmers’ conservation work and “giving farmers new revenue streams,” adding that he wants to hash out “practical” solutions with producers themselves.

A Marine Corps and Army veteran, Sage served three tours in Iraq — in 2004, 2006 and 2010 — and speaks openly about PTSD treatment he accessed through the VA. After the military, he worked nights as a screen printer while attending Kansas State University on the GI Bill, then moved into small-market radio and, most recently, led the Knoxville Chamber of Commerce.

Those experiences, he told voters, animate both his urgency and his style.

“I might get a little loud. I might drop an F bomb or two,” he said with a grin. “We need real people in Washington, D.C., to fight for us.”

Later, he framed his pitch this way: “Washington, D.C., is made up of 98 percent generational wealth. Only 2 percent come from the working class … we are not properly represented.”

Momentum, money and what’s next

Sage said the statewide tour has forged a tighter team and campaign plan. The tour, he argued, delivered what U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett advised him in July: “Get your ugly mug in front of everybody.”

From here, he said, the campaign will spread events out, focus on “on-the-ground organizing,” “house parties,” “having conversations with people,” and “raising money … to keep going.”

“I feel very proud for where we are today … I think the train is kind of just starting to get rolling,” he said.

Asked how a self-styled outsider would wield influence in Washington, Sage said his value is lived experience.

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“I am your average working-day, working-class American. I can bring perspective … on a level that a lot of people can’t,” whether on wages, health costs or veterans’ care, Sage said. “I feel like democracy is hanging in the balance, and we can’t wait any longer.”

Sage is one of four Democrats seeking the party’s nomination in Iowa’s 2026 open U.S. Senate contest, along with state Sens. Zach Wahls of Coralville and Josh Turek of Council Bluffs, and veterans advocate Bob Krause of Burlington.

A fifth Democrat, Des Moines Public School Board leader Jackie Norris, ended her campaign last month.

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Democrats’ big Tuesday — and Sage’s Mamdani takeaway

Sage told attendees the mood of the electorate is shifting after Democrats notched a series of victories across the country on Tuesday — wins he said validated a focus on working-class issues and affordability.

Asked what lessons Iowa Democrats should take away from Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the New York City mayoral race, Sage said: “What I’ll take is the election is listening to people, and Mamdani listened to people.”

He added that the message resonating now is “representing working-class issues, making life more affordable, everything that I seem to be talking about this whole time.”

The broader picture: Democrats dominated the first major Election Day since President Donald Trump returned to the White House, including moderate gubernatorial wins in Virginia and New Jersey and a California push to redraw maps that could net Democrats additional U.S. House seats. Party strategists argue Trump’s inability to deliver the economic turnaround he promised last fall could haunt Republicans heading into the 2026 midterms, after voters rejected candidates and causes aligned with Trump from Virginia and Pennsylvania to Maine and New Jersey.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee seized on New York City’s result to argue Democrats are embracing a far-left blueprint.

“Democrats have anointed Mamdani as their new leader and voters in battleground states like Iowa will reject the radical, copy-cat Mamdanis” in 2026, NRSC Regional Press Secretary Samantha Cantrell said in a statement.

Supporters see authenticity, working-class empathy as Sage’s strength

Among those who came to hear Sage speak in Iowa City were Samantha and Willis Barr of Atalissa, who said they see in Sage the kind of authenticity and working-class empathy they feel is missing from national politics. Samantha said she first found Sage through Facebook and was impressed by his platform.

“I was reading through his policies and like his priorities and thoughts and everything,” she said. “And so I was pretty interested in what he had to say … it seemed like he was actually gonna have a backbone,” she said, adding that she wanted to meet him in person “to get a feeling for his personality.”

Samantha, 35, who described herself as “about as far left as you can get,” cited Sage’s positions on health care, gun reform and raising the minimum wage well beyond $15 an hour as key reasons she supports him.

“Everything has raised — the price of gas has raised, the price of groceries has raised, everything — but minimum wage has stayed the same. Are you kidding me? How is anybody expected to survive even in a dual-income household now?” she said.

Her husband, Willis, said Sage’s life story mirrored his own.

“I grew up in a trailer. I was on food stamps growing up … Both my parents worked all the time. I never saw them,” he said. “When he said not being able to go to college made him feel like a failure — I dropped out of high school at 18. I felt the exact same way.”

Now 38, Willis said he and his wife “live paycheck to paycheck every single month,” but Sage’s candidness “resonates with me 100 percent — that’s the kind of people I know.”

The couple said they believe Sage’s “real and relatable” approach could reach voters beyond his base, even in a conservative-leaning state.

“It makes him more approachable, it makes him real,” Samantha said. “I think it could definitely help him. I think maybe some of the more rural voters, it’ll resonate with … maybe some of the younger people in Iowa.”

Still, they acknowledged the challenge ahead.

“I think it’ll be a really hard win in Iowa, honestly,” Samantha said. “It’s a very red state … but I’m hopeful. I’d love to see him win.”

Comments: (319) 398-8499; tom.barton@thegazette.com