[NYTimes]: The Democrat Making Republicans Nervous in Iowa
Rob Sand, Iowa’s auditor, is campaigning for governor with a pragmatic message that eschews strict partisanship.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/08/us/rob-sand-iowa-governor-democrat.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
'Mr. Sand portrays himself as someone who eschews party identity in favor of common sense: Since first declaring his candidacy last year, Mr. Sand has advertised himself as a “governor for all” and repeated the slogan “Not redder or bluer, but better and truer.”
More than 1,500 registered Republicans have donated to his campaign, said Emma O’Brien, a spokeswoman for his campaign, along with more than 4,000 registered voters in Iowa who do not have a party affiliation.'
Mr. Sand would rather talk about how Iowans have been mistreated by what he calls a series of poor decisions by state leaders and a broken “two-choice political system.”
“The bottom line is, I think we’re in a place here where a lot of the stuff that the folks running the state have done, they know in their hearts is actually a bad thing to do,” he said, citing the ballooning budget deficit and a school voucher program that he says gives preferential treatment to private schools.
jackhutton 🇺🇸