Brad Sherman announced on Monday he is running for governor. A former head of the Iowa County Republican Party who served one term in the Iowa House of Representatives, Sherman is the first declared candidate in the 2026 governor’s race.
“This is not merely a campaign; this is a movement to revitalize the heart and soul of our state,” Sherman said in a news release. “I look forward to working with President Trump — who I endorsed early and supported in rallies, caucuses, conventions, and elections — in his agenda to restore the America we love.”
The “endorsed early and supported in … caucuses,” would seem to be an attempt to distinguish Sherman from Gov. Kim Reynolds, who supported Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the 2024 Iowa Caucus.
Sherman didn’t mention the governor in his news release, but he painted a grim picture of Iowa after almost eight years of the Reynolds administration.
“The foundational values upon which our liberties rest have been dangerously undermined and now we’re at a crossroads,” he said. “As governor, I will work hard to restore the foundations of freedom and stand for the constitutional rights of every individual, ensuring that Iowa remains a welcoming place for faith, families, and thriving businesses.”
According to the news release, Sherman is running on “a platform of defending Iowans’ rights against eminent domain abuse, encouraging fiscal responsibility, promoting family values, and returning government to the foundational principles that made America great.”
Sherman, a resident of Williamsburg, is the founder and pastor of the Solid Rock Christian Church in Coralville. He is also a co-founder of Informed Choice of Iowa, which operates so-called “crisis pregnancy centers” in Iowa City and Burlington.
Crisis pregnancy centers are “unregulated and often nonmedical facilities have no legal obligation to provide pregnant people with accurate information,” according to the American Academy of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. The centers “represent themselves as legitimate reproductive health care clinics providing care for pregnant people but actually aim to dissuade people from accessing certain types of reproductive health care, including abortion care and even contraceptive options.”
Sherman was president and board chair of Informed Choice of Iowa for 10 years. During his one term in the Iowa House, representing Iowa County and the western part of Johnson County, he made opposition to abortion rights one of his main priorities.
During his successful 2022 run for the Iowa House, Sherman also campaigned on “denying the 2020 presidential election results and advocating against the separation of church and state,” as George Shillcock of the Press-Citizen reported.
“Sherman also promotes misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic and the vaccine, comparing what he perceives as fear mongering and coercive tactics by the government to the Holocaust and medical experiments forced on people in Nazi Germany,” Shillcock reported. “He said he supports a blanket ban on mandatory vaccines, including banning private businesses from requiring employees to be vaccinated.”
On his current campaign site, Sherman lists “Medical Freedom” as one of his key issues, and pledges he “will sign legislation to reduce emergency powers” such as those that allowed Gov. Reynolds to order certain businesses to close during the height of the pandemic, “and will work to dismantle the bureaucratic swamp that was responsible for the iron hand of tyranny we saw from the medical establishment during COVID.”
Shillcock also reviewed websites where Sherman posted his writing before and during the 2022 campaign, and found the candidate described his belief “that church and state should not be separated and called the separation inclusion in the First Amendment ‘a myth.’ While he said he doesn’t want to force Christianity on others, he advocates for a stronger presence of the religion in government.”
“Sherman has also published books and readings affiliated with his church that state LGBTQ issues are ‘satanic sacraments.’”
On his current campaign site, Sherman does not mention any plans to further promote his version of Christianity, if elected governor. He also does not mention abortion, beyond saying, “We have made progress in the battle to protect the life of the unborn and we must continue that fight.”
This is Sherman’s first run for statewide office. He chose not to run for reelection to the Iowa House in 2024.
Gov. Reynolds has not yet said if she is running for reelection, but it is widely expected she will. The governor would be a prohibitive favorite in the 2026 Republican primary.
Reynolds’ campaign committee reported having about $3 million on hand in its January filing with the Iowa Ethics & Campaign Disclosure Board. Sherman’s campaign reported about $8,000 on hand.
In a Facebook post on Wednesday, Sherman said he had raised $250 on Tuesday, the day after his announcement. The 24-hour goal of the Tuesday fundraiser was $10,000.
