Stauch is running uphill in Iowa, but she has a plan

You may have read Julie Stauch, a Democratic candidate for governor, is a “political consultant.” She says that’s OK, but not totally accurate.

She jokes that “political hack” also works.

“I actually consider it a badge of honor,” Stauch told me in an interview. “Because it means you’re doing the work, as opposed to political consultants.”

Stauch has worked on 24 campaigns at last count, including congressional races on behalf of Democrats in Iowa, Pennsylvania and Hawaii. Nice work if you can get it.

She toiled in Nebraska to help Democrats hold onto the “blue dot,” an Omaha congressional district that’s worth one presidential electoral vote. She’s also worked on at least six presidential campaigns. Pete Buttigieg was her candidate in 2020.

During all those campaigns, Stauch developed strategies for others. This time, she decided to campaign for herself.

“I want to be governor. It's a role I would like filling because it's an administrative role, and most of what I have done has been in administrative and or working with other people who are administrators, who need somebody to have that executive mindset,” Stauch said.

But first comes the Democratic primary campaign. Stauch is considered a long shot running against State Auditor Rob Sand. Sand has lots of money, has won two statewide races and is considered the best hope for Democrats to win a gubernatorial election after 20 years of failure.

Stauch gets mentioned a lot in the final paragraphs of stories about Sand. “Also seeking the Democratic nomination is Jule Stauch of West Des Moines.”

“But I'm comfortable with that spot, because the election isn't tomorrow,” Stauch said.

Stauch has been holding voter meetings across the state, where she asks open-ended questions on issues to gain an understanding of what voters want and don’t want.

The former elementary school teacher has worksheets for voters to fill out. But there are no bad grades. She doesn’t even care if they use complete sentences. I do wonder if filling one out gets you a gold star or a smelly sticker. Can’t confirm.

“The number one problem we all face, and this is for both parties and for government, as well, is nobody trusts anymore,” Stauch said.

“It's going to be a lot of work to bring back credibility to our government … I think there's just a lot of rebuilding and building anew that's going to need to happen in the next governor's office,” she said.

As Stauch listened she learned water quality is often in the top three issues voters care about, if not the No. 1 issue.

Most Democratic hopefuls in the past have steered clear of the issue beyond some platitudes about the need for environmental protection. They’ve feared talking about regulations needed to control farm-based water pollutants would alienate rural voters.

When we need a leader willing to march toward cleaning up our dirty water, we get a dance leading us back to the status quo.

“I can tell you very clearly, you're not going to alienate rural voters,” Stauch said, arguing that among 1.2 million Iowans living in rural areas, 157,000 farm.

Stauch points out we don’t even follow rules already on the books.

“Under the leadership of Branstad-Reynolds, they have been reduced, removed, ignored,” Stauch said. “So, I found it absolutely ludicrous that Kim Reynolds said … regulation doesn't work. OK, Kim, how would you know it doesn't work? Because you consistently deregulate everything you can. And that makes no sense, unless you're just all about destruction.

“So, I think we do absolutely need to have the penalties, if only to get them to think twice,” Stauch said.

She said immigration also is top of mind for Iowans. It comes up at every meeting.

“It comes up that people are very upset about their immigrant neighbors being hauled off,” Stauch said. “The comments to me are ‘these people work hard. They're good neighbors. Why are they doing this? We need these people in our communities. This makes no sense.’”

But Stauch believes our problems can be solved.

“Let me just say I'm optimistic that we have some tremendous opportunity here in Iowa, because what the Republicans are not reading well is how pissed off everybody is at the state level leadership. And you know, you can't blame the Democrats here right now, because they were not allowed to do anything.” Stauch said.

Stauch said she’s also not a Democrat who believes abandoning trans civil rights in Iowa is good politics.

“We want the people of Iowa to be 100% of who they are, to bring 100% of their talents, abilities and experience,” Stauch said.

Sand is campaigning as a no labels candidate, saying he’s running for the Democratic nomination simply because candidates must “pick your poison” under our system.

“I don't really like political parties,” Sand said in June at a town hall in Waukee. “But guess what? In the state of Iowa, if you want to vote in a primary, you have to pick your poison. So what did I do? I picked my poison. But we should still be talking about the fact that it is poison.”

“Have you seen the movie Moneyball?” Stauch asks.

“Oh yeah, there's a scene in Moneyball where Brad Pitt's in the weight room, so like a five second, three second scene, and he's just giving a couple of the guys instruction, and he says, when your opponent is making errors, don't let him know. And I don't think (Sand) is reading that correctly, but that is how he's reading it, and that is how he's moving forward.

“I want to make one point with you. I'm not running against Rob Sand. I'm running for governor, and that's my focus. So, I typically don't comment on him,” she said.

Stauch understands politics and knows she faces an uphill climb. But she contends Democrats can win after so many years of losing. She brings experience and even an understanding of geology.

“I liken it to an earthquake in the middle of the ocean. It's going to take a while for that wave to become a tsunami and to hit shore,” Stauch said. “And the earthquake here is across the state … Republicans who are assuming that they're automatically going to regain office are smoking something that they're not supposed to be growing right now,” Stauch said.

Shoot, I forgot to ask her about legalizing marijuana. It’s a long campaign, so I’ll probably get another chance.

(319) 398-8262; todd.dorman@thegazette.com