Republicans keep winning. Sand hopes to change the game

Iowa Republicans seem convinced of their political invincibility.

It happens when you hold all the cards for so long. You might not notice the game is changing. The “radical socialist” label loses its punch. Manufactured fears don’t scare us like they used to. An undying allegiance to Donald Trump just doesn’t make voters swoon anymore.

And when the thrill is gone, all the winning might go with it.

And it’s hard to be thrilled in a state with a lousy economy, dirty water and sinking public schools. Iowa was a proud leader on civil rights, but our hate is making headlines. We need immigrants to grow our state and work in our industries, so we demonize them.

We’ve been drinking straight red state for 10 years. The hangover could be a doozy.

Or maybe Rob Sand is just incredibly lucky.

The state auditor and Democratic candidate for governor just finished holding 100 town-hall-style events all over the state. During those events Sand insisted he’s a problem solver who has become tired of partisan divisions. He calls partisanship “poison.”

And while Sand traveled the state, defining what sort of candidate he aspires to be, Republicans didn’t lay a glove on him. No TV ads. No constant string of press releases hounding the Democrat. Nothing. He got a free pass.

Who cares? Republicans have a massive 195,000 voter registration advantage over Democrats, all the power and mountains of money. So, it doesn’t matter. The old rules don’t apply to the invincible. It’s true, Republicans remain formidable and favored.

But Sand is trying to change the game.

It may seem trivial, but at each stop, Sand asks Democrats, Republicans and no party voters to raise their hands. Each group gets a round of applause from the others. Then they sing “America the Beautiful.”

That moment of rare unity probably feels pretty good.

“You know, I think people are fed up. I think they are tired with the direction of the state of Iowa,” Sand told me in an interview. “They want something different. They're tired of partisanship. And those two things align with what my approach has always been even from when I ran in 2018 and when I was a prosecutor prior to that.

“I think that people are looking at higher costs. They're seeing that our economy is one of the worst in the country, that our personal income growth is 48th and yet we're number one for cancer. So we're losing the contests you want to win, and winning the contests you want to lose,” Sand said.

Rather than take on Sand, Republicans decided to wait until U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra finally stopped “exploring” and officially launched his campaign for governor. It happened this past week. He is not a breath of fresh air.

“I’m running to be the next governor of Iowa to take our state to new heights,” Feenstra wrote in a post on X. Hey, have you heard he’s tall?

“Working with President Trump, we will build a stronger Iowa and keep the liberal, progressive agenda out of our state.”

A Feenstra campaign video called Sand a “liberal liar.” Classic.

Meanwhile, on the campaign trail …

“We had great turnout from Republicans,” Sand said. “A lot of those folks are Rob-publicans. They may have come in supporting me. They may have come in curious. They may have come in skeptical. But oftentimes, a third to even 40 or even 50% of our audience was not Democrats, and people came away, you know, signing up to volunteer.”

Sand also contends after winning two statewide races as auditor, he’s already defined his approach. Meaningful, but not the same as running for the whole enchilada.

Sand’s campaign says more than 10,000 people attended his town halls. It’s not a massive slice of the electorate. But Sand also generated lots of local media coverage, which the campaign chronicled in regular press releases.

“Pragmatic” and “non-partisan,” says Tama-Grundy Publishing.

“Sand wants to ‘hold politicians accountable,” was the headline in the Fort Madison Daily Democrat.

“Sand seeks changes to political system,” says the Keokuk Daily Gate City.

“Sand has made a habit of unearthing wasteful spending,” reports the Ottumwa Courier.

“Sand Brings Reform Message to Clarion Town Hall,” says the Wright County Monitor.

The list goes on, like blurbs in a movie ad.

People had a lot of questions.

Audience members asked about Republican efforts to defang his auditor’s office and restrict its access to financial information needed to uncover malfeasance. They wondered about the quality of public schools and asked how we can afford spending hundreds of millions of dollars on scholarships for every private school student in Iowa, with too little budgetary oversight.

The cost of living came up plenty. As did threats to rural health care and the state’s cancer rate. Sand said he’s still working on a policy proposal to address water quality.

“As we've been telling people, we're going to have a plan out well in advance of voting, and that's still our goal,” Sand said. “And look, you know, again, I could have had a plan on day one if I was happy to pull somebody else's plan off a shelf. But I really want to know this. I want to know what I'm talking about. I think it's an important issue, and we've got to have a real plan that's both achievable and impactful.”

We already know fertilizer, including liquid hog “nutrient,” is being used in excess. That excess can make its way to our waters. We also know how to stop it, but we don’t require any landowners to do it. So, I get the listening, but the data doesn’t lie.

Republicans remain confident of their chances to extend their control of state government, which is going on 10 years. We’re bright red, and very well may stay that way.

But you have to wonder if a day will come when Republicans think of Todd Halbur. In 2022, Halbur was the Republican nominee for state auditor, but was basically shunned by his party’s leaders. They didn’t even invite him on the campaign-ending bus trip along with other Republican candidates.

On election night, a very good one for the Iowa GOP, Halbur lost to Sand by just 2,893 votes out of more than 1.2 million cast.

The GOP could have severely damaged, or even ended, Sand’s political ambitions. But like some sort of Bond villain, they left him dangling over the shark tank, and he escaped.

It may come back to bite the invincible Republicans.

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