Challengers to Gov. Kim Reynolds hope for lightning strike

According to the federal government, the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are around one in 500,000.

As they launch their longshot campaigns for governor, Joshua Kuhn-McRoberts, Robert Bond and Kim West each hope to be the one.

Democrats West and Kuhn-McRoberts, and Bond, an independent, share many of the same views about incumbent Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, who they hope to unseat in the 2022 election.

“Everybody has suffered as a result of your failure to lead in this time of need,” said West, a Des Moines attorney, who may have the catchiest campaign slogan: “Iowa needs a new Kim.”

“In this time of need, when we needed a governor most, you have been absolutely ineffective,” he said about Reynolds.

McRoberts, who is from Waukee and works for the Iowa Finance Authority, is presenting himself as a “compassionate disrupter … who isn’t afraid to change the status quo and reject the radical ideas of the far-right wing conservatives that have moved Iowa back, not forward.”

For Bond, also from Des Moines, it’s a matter of being the change he wants.

“I’ve been really waiting to see a candidate that represented people more so than politics, money than corporations,” he said. “And I haven't seen that in my lifetime. So I decided to be that change (because) I honestly think that at this point in time, a lot of our leadership is really dissociated with the people that they are supposed to be representing.”

At the same time, Bond is realistic about his chances against Reynolds. Recent polling shows her with a 51 percent favorability rating among Iowa adults nearly a year-and-a-half ahead of the 2022 election.

“I do understand running as an independent candidate is almost a death sentence,” Bond said. “But I will tell you, I have seen some really inspirational things in the last several years that I feel like that there's really some power if I can get out to enough people.”

The challenge

The challenge for Democrats, according to Republican Party of Iowa spokesman Kollin Crompton, is that Reynolds “has created the fastest recovering economy in the nation because of her balanced approach to the pandemic. It doesn't matter who Democrats choose, Gov. Reynolds will always fight on behalf of Iowans."

The filing period for the June 2022 primary election for governor and other statewide offices has not been set because of changes the Legislature made in state law this year. Typically the filing period is in February and March.

The challengers

The three, who join Rep. Ras Smith of Waterloo as potential Reynolds challengers, draw on their Iowa roots and experience.

Kuhn-McRoberts comes from a line of “farmers, coal miners, and laborers who work these rolling hills that we call Iowa,” he said in introducing himself on his Facebook page.

“Those are my roots, and my roots I have not forgotten,” he said. “I want to be a 21st century governor who brings growth to the state of Iowa, and I want to ensure that Iowa reclaims its spot as number one in the nation for public education.”

West comes from a family of teachers and, after attending the University of Iowa, he taught in Coggon before going to law school. In the 1980s, he worked as a public defender in Cerro Gordo County before practicing in Des Moines.

In addition to — or perhaps because of — the policies Reynolds and the GOP-controlled Legislature have enacted, West thinks Iowa may have lost that shared value known as “Iowa nice.”

“It’s a natural thing, caring for strangers as though they were long-lost friends, and doing so out of the goodness of one’s heart,” he said in a video explaining his campaign. “Lately, the words ‘Iowa Nice’ have been hijacked by cynics.”

Kuhn-McRoberts wants to bring those Iowa nice values instilled in him at an early age — “from respect to determination, grit, hard work, responsibility and a sense of duty” — to the governor’s office.

Bond, too, is critical of the policies of the Reynolds’ administration. A graduate of life’s school of hard knocks, Bond said he struggled with homelessness and mental health issues.

He said he used government and social service programs while struggling with those issues, eventually returning to school to get his GED and marketing degrees from Des Moines Area Community College and from Simpson College.

He’s concerned that programs to help Iowans in need are being cut or not supported.

“The government isn't really meeting the needs of, I guess you'd say, regular people,” Bond said.

Since 2017, Bond has worked toward establishing a marketing firm, but lost everything in a fire. On the side, he’s working as a driver for a food and beverage delivery service.

Comments: (319) 398-8375; james.lynch@thegazette.com