State Sen. Sarah Trone Garriott announced on Monday she is running for Congress in Iowa’s 3rd District. The West Des Moines Democrat is the first candidate to launch a run for the seat currently held by two-term incumbent Republican Zach Nunn.
“Zach Nunn has failed us,” Trone Garriott said in her announcement video. “As Iowa struggles with higher costs, attacks on our personal freedoms and reckless cuts to our public schools, Zach Nunn is not showing up, he’s not listening and he’s not working for us.”
“Iowans know that I show up for all my constituents, and that I listen, and that I speak out.”
Trone Garriott is a Lutheran minister and is part of the leadership team at the Des Moines Area Religious Council (DMARC), which operates a network of food pantries and provides other services to help meet people’s basic needs. She lives with her husband, Will, and their two sons in West Des Moines.
Trone Garriott is in her third term in the Iowa Senate.
“I’m the only Iowa Democrat who flipped two seats from red to blue, then won a district that went to Trump in 2024,” Trone Garriott said in the video. “I know how to win, and I know how to deliver for Iowans.”
Sarah Trone Garriott grew up in Cloquet, Minnesota, and earned her undergraduate degree in history at the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth. After graduating, she joined AmeriCorps VISTA, working for Northern New Mexico Legal Aid in Gallup, New Mexico, where she focused on issues related to domestic violence. She then continued her education, first at the Harvard Divinity School, where she earned a masters in Theological Studies, and then at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago, completing her Master of Divinity degree.
Trone Garriott served as the chaplain at a hospital in Philadelphia, as well as the chaplain at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago, before moving into a pastoral role leading churches. In late 2013, she became the associate pastor of Faith Lutheran Church in Clive. Four years later, she joined DMARC as the nonprofit’s coordinator of Interfaith Engagement.
In a 2020 interview with Religion News Service (RNS), Trone Garriott said she decided to take the position at DMARC because of the growing divisions, which sometimes turned violent, after President Trump’s election in 2016.
“I like to connect with people, meet folks, make connections for them — I’m a connector,” she told RNS.
Trone Garriott announced in June 2019 she was running for the Iowa Senate in District 22.
“I’ve always felt called to serve,” she said in her announcement video. “… [O]ver the last several years, I watched the public schools struggling. I know our air and water quality are not what they could be. Many of my neighbors are having trouble finding quality, accessible healthcare. And unfortunately, not all Iowans have a voice in their government.”
The district’s senator was Charles Schneider, who had served as a member of the West Des Moines City Council for nine years before winning the Senate seat in a special election in 2012. Schneider was part of the Republican leadership team in the Iowa Senate, having served briefly as majority leader after Sen. Bill Dix resigned in disgrace, before becoming Senate president in March 2018.
In March 2020, Schneider unexpectedly announced he was not running for reelection. Scott Cirksena, the mayor of Clive, became the Republican nominee. It was a close race — the only 2020 legislative race in Iowa to have a recount — but Trone Garriott won with 50.1 percent of the vote.
In 2022, after the redistricting that followed the 2020 Census results, Trone Garriott ran for reelection in Senate District 14 against fellow incumbent Jake Chapman, a Republican who had been in the Iowa Senate for 18 years and had succeeded Charles Schneider as Senate president. Trone Garriott defeated Chapman by 3 percentage points in what became the most expensive race for the Iowa Legislature that year.
In 2024, Trone Garriott faced Mark Hanson, who had served on the Dallas County Board of Supervisors for 19 years, in her run for reelection. The year was dismal for Democrats in Iowa, with Trump carrying the state by 13.2 percentage points, Sen. Chuck Grassley winning reelection in a landslide, every Republican member of Congress being reelected, and Republicans increasing the majorities in the Iowa House and Senate. Trone Garriott had also been a top target of the Iowa Republican Party, facing a barrage of negative advertising from out-of-state Republican groups. Despite all this, she managed to pull off an incredibly narrow victory. A recount confirmed Trone Garriott carried the district by 29 votes.
“I held onto my district in a really tough year for Democrats in 2024 because of how hard I’ve worked for my constituents and how I show up for the people and how I speak on their behalf in state government,” she told the Des Moines Register in an interview published Monday. “And that is what I’ll be bringing to this race for Congress.”
In the state Senate, Trone Garriott has been a leading voice supporting public education in the face of the governor’s creation of a voucher program to shift public funds to private schools. She’s also opposed efforts to restrict curricula in public schools, and to eliminate gun safety laws, reproductive rights and LGBTQ rights.
“In the legislature, I’ve stood up time and again for Iowa families against bullies who demonized our teachers and attacked our public schools,” Trone Garriot said in her video on Monday. “I’ve stood up against politics as usual and the corrupt insiders rigging the system.”
Zach Nunn has not yet said if he plans to seek reelection in 2026, although he is widely expected to run. In an interview on WHO radio last week, Nunn was asked if he was considering running for governor next year. He said no, and went on to say he has “a mission” in Congress.
“I am combat focused and trained, and now we are in Washington,” he said. “I’ve got a job to do.”
The seat in Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District is expected to be among top targets for Democratic Party as it attempts to win control of the House in the midterm elections. Responding to Trone Garriott’s announcement on Monday, the National Republican Congressional Committee issued a rather generic statement denouncing her as “Out of touch” and as an “activist attempting to radicalize Iowa.”
“We’re at a critical moment in our nation’s history,” Trone Garriott said at the conclusion of her announcement video. “This moment is a calling for me and for all of us stand up.”
