Iowa state auditor candidate Abigail Maas ready to bring ‘cowgirl grit’ to the role if elected

URBANDALE — Iowa County Supervisor Abigail Maas said she is ready to translate her horse roping and riding skills to reining in taxpayer dollars and property taxes as state auditor.

Speaking to attendees at the Westside Conservative Club meeting at the Machine Shed restaurant in Urbandale on Wednesday morning, Maas, 33, who is running as a Republican for Iowa state auditor, said her experience authorizing county department funds and tracking taxpayer dollars as county supervisor makes her a strong contender for the role.

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“There's not a lot of people that wake up excited to crunch numbers or bale hay at 4 in the morning, but that's me, and I have cowgirl grit,” Maas said. “I have horses. Obviously, I know how to rope and ride, and this is why I fight. I fight for the taxpayers.”

The Iowa State Auditor’s office is responsible for auditing counties, cities, universities, school districts and other governmental subdivisions in the state. It also investigates potential fraud, waste and abuse of taxpayer dollars and public funds.

The state auditor seat will be open in 2026 after current state auditor Rob Sand, a Democrat, launched a campaign for Iowa governor in May.

Lt. Gov. Chris Cournoyer, of LeClaire, announced her candidacy in May to seek the Republican nomination for auditor, after Gov. Kim Reynolds announced she would not seek another term as governor. Maas launched her run in June.

Cournoyer, who has been lieutenant governor since December, has Reynolds' endorsement in the campaign

Maas said state auditor has been her “dream job” for years.

“When I decided to throw my hat in the race, it's not because I want to be famous. I do not want to become the next governor,” Maas said. “I want to make auditing great again.”

Maas has served as an Iowa County supervisor since 2021 and was reelected last fall. Her current term expires in 2028.

Aside from serving as Iowa County supervisor, Maas owns a flooring store and a horse boarding facility. She and her husband, Jared, are sixth-generation farmers on his family farm in South Amana, where they are raising their two young children.

Property taxes and the state auditor’s office

Maas said she believes the state auditor’s office could play a larger role in reining in increasing property taxes, an issue she hears a lot about from county residents, by making state and local government auditing processes more frequent, transparent and efficient. This, she said, would then help reduce property taxes.

“Our property taxes are outpacing our income taxes by over a billion dollars in our state,” Maas said. “It's an issue that we need to tackle.”

Maas frequently testified before legislative subcommittees earlier this year, advocating for property tax reform. She also helped write property tax legislation for state Sen. Dan Dawson who headed efforts in the chamber to pass property tax reform during the 2025 legislative session.

The legislation failed to make it to the floor of the legislature, but lawmakers have vowed to return to it during the 2026 legislative session.

Maas also proposed implementing a statewide software system to ensure consistency in audits across the state and include a flagging process to catch when government spending goes over budget early on.

Making state property tax data public so Iowans can see where their money is being spent will help lawmakers and the public identify “gray areas” in government spending, Maas said.

“People are gonna be less apt to spend on gray areas or steal money if they know that it's all their data is online, I think that shining a light on it is going to eliminate some of that from the get-go,” Maas said.

Mass expressed hesitancy about Reynolds’s DOGE Task Force when an attendee asked about how the auditor’s office would play a role in rolling out potential recommendations.

The task force, launched by Reynolds earlier this year, included Iowa leaders in business, elected office and education who were tasked with finding ways to make the state government more efficient and produce recommendations for the governor and lawmakers to consider.

The task force submitted its final report to Reynolds on Sept. 29. The governor has yet to release the report and weigh in on the recommendations.

Maas said she wasn’t sure what property tax data the task force based their recommendations on since a lot of it is not readily available online or across the state.

“They didn't come out and reach out for all of our (counties’) budgets,” Maas said. “I'm a research person … and I want to have the data to support a claim that I want to make something more efficient.”

The primary election is June 2, 2026.

Gazette Des Moines Bureau Deputy Chief Tom Barton contributed to this report.