Iowa Republicans will lose with Randy Feenstra

On Dec. 19, I had a quick conversation with Iowa Republican gubernatorial candidate Randy Feenstra at the conclusion of his campaign stop in Cedar Rapids.

“You’re going to lose,” I told him.

I didn’t say it out of malice or contempt — I don’t harbor either for Feenstra, who currently represents Iowa’s 4th Congressional District in Congress. In fact, I think he’s a pretty nice guy.

I don’t know if Feenstra even knew that he was talking to a newspaper writer, but I hadn’t gone for that purpose. Before I became a journalist, I spent years in the conservative political grassroots doing things that grassroots volunteers do: phone calls, door-to-door canvassing and event organizing. I've stuffed a few envelopes in my lifetime. I’m still on my local Republican central committee.

And it was as a grassroots conservative — i.e., a member of the Republican voting base — that I went that day, to listen to the nice politician give a low-energy stump speech. And realize that he doesn’t have much of a chance in the upcoming 2026 gubernatorial election.

So I told him, “You’re going to lose.”

I said it very politely. He listened just as politely. I’d like to say that I meant it a wake-up call for the candidate with the anemic campaign strategy. It wasn’t.

It was mostly out of disbelief at the milquetoast performance I had just observed.

But let's say I did intend for what I said to be a wake-up call. If Feenstra doesn’t feel he needs one, then Iowa Republican voters do: If Randy Feenstra is our candidate, Iowa Republicans will lose the governorship in 2026.

Most of Feenstra’s earlier wins required little effort

Feenstra is from Hull, a small town in Sioux County in Northwest Iowa. He worked as Head of Sales for a candy company before he became the city administrator in Hull in 1999. In 2006, he was appointed and then elected as Sioux County Treasurer. He won his first race for Iowa Senate in 2008 and served for three terms before running for Congress in 2020, ousting incumbent Republican Steve King in the Republican primary before going on to defeat Democrat J.D. Scholten in the general election.

Feenstra never had an opponent on the ballot until he challenged King in the 2020 4th Congressional District primary. His run for Sioux County Treasurer his three state senate runs were all uncontested races.

His victory in the 2020 primary was aided by a large fundraising advantage. Republican donors could see how voters had tired of King, who had survived a challenge from the Democrat Scholten by the skin of his teeth in 2018 and was stripped of his committee assignments by Republican leaders in early 2019 after making racially insensitive remarks.

In the 2026 gubernatorial election, Feenstra will not have the same fundraising advantage he did as the primary challenger to King in 2020. Nor will he be facing the same type of opponent he faced in King.

“I’m running against an opponent called Rob Sand,” Feenstra told the 14 attendees at his Cedar Rapids stop.

That’s half true. Right now, Feenstra’s opponents are the four other Republicans who have declared their intent to seek the GOP nod for governor in 2026: Brad Sherman, a pastor and former state representative from Williamsburg; Eddie Andrews, a state representative from Johnston currently serving in his third term; Adam Steen, the former head of the Iowa Department of Administrative Services and Zach Lahn, an Iowa native who worked in other states for the conservative group Americans for Prosperity before returning to Iowa with his wife and their children.

But assuming — as he clearly is — that Feenstra wins the primary, he will, I am certain, face Rob Sand, the Democratic state auditor who in 2024 alone infused $7 million worth of his wealthy wife’s family’s money into his campaign account.

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Sand can buy his way to Terrace Hill

Republicans say Sand is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, falsely presenting himself as a moderate to endear himself to voters who otherwise wouldn’t go for a Democrat embracing wacky Democrat ideas. You know, like giving puberty blockers to 10-year-olds or believing that fiscal harmony is only achieved by soaking taxpayers for more money or wrongly blaming the struggles of public schools on “vouchers.”

Ideological labels aside, Sand is not the flawless leader he purports to be — during his tenure as state auditor he has picked some pointless and embarrassing fights with Republican officials, including one with Gov. Kim Reynolds’ office regarding her appearance in a COVID-19 public service announcement. Sand claimed Reynolds was violating a law she herself had signed. Reynolds office responded by pointing out the “significant error” Sand had made in his interpretation of said law.

There’s also that misallocation of $27.5 million in court fines from the state judicial branch that Sand’s office was accused of being notified about in 2022 — but which corresponding audit reports didn’t so much as mention.

But one shouldn’t underestimate what a politician like Rob Sand will get away with in the eyes of voters who so far seem charmed by his boy-next-door persona. Sand doesn’t have anything in terms of substantive policy ideas, but what he does have is a seven-year head start on making people like him by posting photos on social media of every gas station pizza slice he eats and videos of every poignant thought he has about what’s wrong with Iowa politics. One won’t find him in the auditor’s office much during working hours, but they will find him appearing before a room full of the adoring supporters he leads in singing “America the Beautiful” while journalists at the event text barf emojis to each other.

Voters might not buy Sand’s folksy schtick if he wasn’t willing to buy their admiration. But he is willing. And with all that money and very little shame, he is quite able.

Whether it seems fair or right, that is what Republicans have to compete with in 2026.

Feenstra has a few big names backing him. Sen. Joni Ernst and Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks both endorsed him several months before he even made his campaign official. He’s also got financial backing from Republican money guys, although we won’t get to see campaign finance reports until as late as Jan. 19.

But Feenstra’s retail politicking operation either can’t or won’t compete like it needs to. That’s what I realized at his Dec. 19 Cedar Rapids event.

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A sheep in wolves’ clothing

The Cedar Rapids event was billed as a “meet and greet.” But it’s hard to meet (or greet) prospective voters when only 14 of them show up.

Fourteen — in Iowa’s second-largest city.

Of course, it's hard to get people in the door with little notice. I got the text from the Feenstra campaign at 11:04 a.m. the day before, about 27 hours in advance of the event.

I’ve been in that very room at that very Pizza Ranch for a politician’s stump speech on more occasions than I care to count. Feenstra’s was the first I’d ever seen during which room dividers were in place so the space wouldn’t be too large.

His brief speech included a four-point policy vision for Iowa focused on business, education, a skilled workforce and improved health care options. Most of his spiel was about his work in Congress. It seemed more a photo op for social media; a box checked so the purported front-runner could show that he was there to meet voters.

Yet when voters and their organizations have sought Feenstra’s presence at their events for that very reason, he has notably passed. Several weeks ago, the Sioux County GOP held a Dec. 8 forum for all five declared GOP gubernatorial candidates, co-hosted with the Siouxland Patriots and conservative online publication The Iowa Standard. Candidates Steen, Sherman, Andrews and Lahn all attended. Feenstra was listed on the event graphic as having “declined.” Two hours before the forum, he held his own event at a brewery less than five miles away, a searing snub to his home county party and grassroots organizers.

One might wonder if Feenstra actually intends to bypass the grassroots, planning instead to tiptoe his way to a primary win with paid ads and relative name recognition.

The problem is, not enough people know Randy Feenstra’s name for him to win in November with that strategy. There's no tiptoeing around Rob Sand in a general election. Republicans can’t risk fielding a candidate who is a sheep in wolves’ clothing.

I told Feenstra that he’s going to lose. I also told him that if I’m wrong, he should happily tell me so to my face at his inaugural gala in 2027.

“I’ll remember this conversation,” he replied.

I bet he will. But I don’t think I’m wrong.

Comments: 319-343-8222; althea.cole.writer@gmail.com