Promising “at least three major town halls and dozens of public stops,” Republican David Paustch announced on Friday he’s launching a tour of all 20 counties in Iowa’s 1st Congressional District. The 71-year-old Pautsch, best known as the host of the annual Quad Cities Prayer Breakfast, is running for the House seat currently held by Mariannette Miller-Meeks.
“Our current Congresswoman has been missing in action,” Pautsch said in the news release about his tour. “The people of Southeast Iowa deserve a representative who listens, not one who disappears between elections.”
This is Pautsch’s second primary run against Miller-Meeks. He ran in 2024, denouncing Miller-Meeks as too liberal and “too often out of step with the principles of her fellow Republicans and with biblical morality.” That last part is important for Paustch, who says on his campaign site that the Constitution and the rest of America’s founding documents “all intend to honor YHWH, the Most High God, and not decadence, murder, and idolatry” and that “Judeo-Christian morality should be settled as a matter of public policy,”
The tour doesn’t mark the start of Pautsch’s campaign. He kicked off his campaign on Feb. 27 at the Iowa State Capitol, but things didn’t go the way he planned. On Feb. 27, the bill stripping gender identity protections from the Iowa Civil Rights Act and erasing trans people from state law was being fast-tracked through the Iowa House. Thousands of Iowans were at the State Capitol to protest.
Pautsch had reserved the Capitol Rotunda for his campaign launch, but it was full of people rallying against the attack on civil rights, so he had to speak to the small group he attracted in an adjacent hallway.
The candidate was unhappy, saying he had called both the governor’s office and the attorney general’s office to demand the protesters be cleared out of the rotunda. Pautsch was told — correctly — that neither the governor nor the attorney general is in charge of the Capitol Building.
“Every person in this state ultimately reports to the governor,” Pautsch, unconvinced by the answers he’d received, told his followers in the hallway. “And I can assure you that if Donald Trump were the governor of this state, there would not be this commotion going on right here.”
Later in his launch event, Pautsch complained again about the ongoing protest: “Noise, noise, noise. It wouldn’t happen on my watch.”
It’s not clear what Pautsch thought he could do about a protest in the State Capitol if he wins a seat in Congress, but on his campaign site he pledges to fight to create a society “free of woke government intrusion with warped sexual agendas and transgender predation.”
Pautsch, a Davenport resident, is the owner of the Ramsey Advertising Agency. He is an Army veteran, having played tuba in the Continental Army Band, from 1973 to 1976, after studying at the Armed Forces School of Music in Virginia.
In 1988, Pautsch founded Thy Kingdom Come Ministries in Davenport, and seven years later, started the Quad Cities Prayer Breakfast. The annual event has become a regular stop for lesser-known Republicans with presidential ambitions looking to connect with rightwing Christians ahead of the Iowa Caucus.
Donald Trump has never attended the prayer breakfast, but he and Pautsch did meet briefly when Trump was campaigning at the Front Street Pub and Eatery in 2023.
“Following the filming of a Fox News town hall with pundit Sean Hannity, Trump stopped at the downtown Davenport pub and restaurant, and spoke with a few dozen supporters, including Pautsch,” the Courier reported at the time.
“At Front Street, Trump shook Pautsch’s hand and the two spoke for several minutes. Trump floated endorsing in the race, but stopped short of pledging his support for Pautsch.”
Trump did, however, refer to Pautsch as “a very good man,” something Pautsch mentions more than once on his campaign site.
Trump didn’t endorse Miller-Meeks either in 2024. She was the only Iowa Republican running for Congress that year Trump didn’t endorse. Miller-Meeks ended up beating Pautsch by 12 percentage points in the primary, winning 56 percent of the vote.
Running a low-budget campaign — Pautsch spent less than $40,000 — he managed to win five of the 1st District’s 20 counties, including Scott County.
Once again this year, Pautsch is seeking Trump’s backing. In a February interview with Laura Belin of Bleeding Heartland, Pautsch said he’d “been in touch with [Trump’s] folks, and we’re talking.”
Pautsch is also once again attacking Miller-Meeks as a Republican In Name Only, lacking true MAGA dedication.
“People are catching on,” he told Belin. “Now she’s pretending to be, like she’s been a Trump supporter all along. She’s actually been a Trump hater.”
In addition to highlighting his devotion to Trump and his determination to reorient America around his version of Christianity, Pautsch also pledges on his site “to protect our farmers and farmland from radical environmentalists who believe the lie that carbon excesses cause global warming, and seek to destroy our farms, waterways and farm economy with baseless regulations.” He also wants to eliminate “all ‘red flag’ laws allowing the government to arbitrarily declare gun owners ‘Unfit To Own,’” and says he will address “the root cause of weapons [sic] by limiting the excessive medication of people with psychotropic drugs.”
Pautsch also says he will “restore energy independence, reduce inflation by slashing government spending and eliminating bureaucratic departments, NGO’s and agencies, balance the budget, return to the gold standard, drastically reduce business regulations and taxes, and eliminate the IRS and the income tax.”
Among the other promises on his site, Pautsch says he will “Legally correct the fraudulent consequences of the 2020 Presidential Election.” The site does not explain what that means.
Even though Pautsch has not received Trump’s endorsement, or even been mentioned by Trump since that night at the Front Street Pub and Eatery in 2023, he has received the endorsement of the once Trump-adjacent Mike Lindell, owner of MyPillow and promoter of pro-Trump conspiracy theories.
“David’s commitment to saving America by trusting in God’s power is unwavering,” Lindell said. “His leadership guarantees constitutional liberty, biblical values, fair and honest elections and a bright future for our children!”
Miller-Meeks has not yet formally announced her plans for 2026, but it is expected that she will run for a fourth term.
