Hiawatha City Councilmember Aime Wichtendahl is running for the Iowa House of Representatives in District 80. Democrat Art Staed currently represents the Linn County district, which cover Hiawatha, Robins and part of Cedar Rapids, but he announced last week he’s running for the Iowa Senate seat held by fellow Democrat Todd Taylor, who, in turn, has decided to run for Linn County Auditor instead of reelection to the Senate.
“These past eight years I’ve had the distinct privilege of serving on the Hiawatha City Council,” Wichtendahl said in her campaign announcement video posted online Tuesday. “It has always been my priority to improve the lives of our residents. That is why I’m running for the Iowa House. Because right now in Des Moines we have a government that wants your vote, but not your opinion. You deserve a government that works for you.”
Wichtendahl made history in 2015 when she won her seat on the city council, becoming Iowa’s first transgender elected official. Wichtendahl, who grew up in the small Benton County town of Newhall, has been interested in politics ever since she was a kid.
“When I was 8 years old, I remember following the ’88 presidential election between Bush and Dukakis,” Wichtendahl told Little Village in 2020. “And interestingly, I was really mad at my parents for voting for Dukakis. Which is weird now ’cause I’m, like, totally a Democrat.”
City elections in Iowa are by law nonpartisan, so she did not campaign for city council as a Democrat. But she is running as a Democrat in District 80, which Biden carried in 2020 with about 55 percent of the vote.
Wichtendahl has been vocal in pushing back against the agenda pursued by Gov. Reynolds and Republican leaders in the Iowa Legislature, especially against the bills that have targeted LGBTQ Iowans in recent years.
Speaking at a rally on the Transgender Day of Visibility in March, Wichtendahl said, “Bigotry can’t be allowed to be disguised as policy. You have to push back on these things, because if you don’t push back, then it just becomes accepted and then it’s allowed to metastasize and get worse.”
“I think something is fundamentally broken in Des Moines, and it’s going to require new leadership to change,” Wichtendahl told the Gazette this week. “Granted, that’s going to be a long, hard road, but it’s one that has to happen … if we are to truly have a government that works for its citizens instead of pushing people they don’t like to the borders.”
In her campaign video, Wichtendahl outlined the issues she’d prioritize in the Iowa House.
“You deserve a government that works to bring good high-paying jobs to Iowa, that values education and enables you to live the American dream,” she said. “Iowans deserve a government free from the corrupting influence of dark money, that respects their private medical healthcare choices, and that lives the values on our flag — our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain.”
The Gazette reports that Republican John Thompson has filed the paperwork to run for the District 80 seat, but has not yet made a formal announcement.
