With less than two weeks remaining before the June primary election, Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig has endorsed Randy Feenstra for governor.
In a written statement released by the Feenstra campaign, Naig said Feenstra “has consistently delivered for Iowa agriculture, farm families, and rural communities.”
“I know Randy will continue to be a strong, conservative voice for Iowa’s farmers and rural communities as Governor,” Naig, a Republican, said.
The endorsement came the same week campaign finance reports showed that Feenstra has slipped to second place in fundraising among the five Republicans running for governor, and Naig, who is running for reelection, only outraised his Democratic opponent Chris Jones thanks to a six-figure donation this month from a national Republican PAC based in Washington D.C.
Gov. Kim Reynolds appointed Naig ag secretary in March 2018, after Bill Northey, the previous secretary, took a job in the first Trump administration. Naig had served as deputy secretary of the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship since September 2013. Before that, Naig had been manager of State and Local Government Affairs for Monsanto in Iowa and held other jobs in agribusiness. He was elected to his full term as secretary eight months after being appointed. Naig was reelected in 2022.
In the November general election, Naig will face Democrat Chris Jones, author of The Swine Republic: Struggles with the Truth about Agriculture and Water Quality and one of the state’s best-known advocates for taking effective action to clean up Iowa’s polluted waterways. Jones, who has Ph.D. in analytical chemistry, spent his career working on water quality issues in private industry, at public utilities and as a research engineer at the Iowa Flood Center, part of the Iowa Institute of Hydraulic Research (IIHR), the University of Iowa’s Hydroscience and Engineering center, before retiring in 2023. Jones is running on a platform that calls for fundamental changes to Iowa’s current agricultural practices to address the damage agribusiness has done to the state’s economy and environment. He’s published a 26-point plan outlining those changes on his campaign site.
Jones, a first-time candidate, raised $104,417 between launching his campaign on Jan. 16 and May 14, the end of the campaign finance reporting period. Between Jan. 1 and May 14, Naig raised $202,118. But $150,000 of Naig’s total came from a May 12 donation from the Republican State Leadership Committee Victory Fund, a Washington D.C. PAC that calls itself “America’s Only Line of Defense Against Socialism in the States.” Without that donation, Naig only raised $52,118 from Jan. 1 to May 14, which is a little under half of what Jones raised.
Naig is the third statewide elected official to endorse Feenstra. Sen. Joni Ernst and State Treasurer Roby Smith endorsed him last month. Feenstra has also been endorsed by Chris Cournoyer, who was appointed lieutenant governor by Gov. Reynolds after Adam Gregg unexpectedly resigned in 2024 to become president of the Iowa Bankers Association. Gov. Reynolds has said she will not make an endorsement in the Republican primary, but will support whichever candidate wins.
Feenstra does have the endorsement of former governor Terry Branstad, but he doesn’t have the one endorsement that would probably secure him a win in the June 2 primary: Donald Trump’s. In much the same way Feenstra has been ignoring his Republican rivals, Trump has ignored Feenstra’s campaign. When Trump held a campaign-style event in Clive in January, all the House members from Iowa were given speaking slots at the rally, except Feenstra.
