Kevin Techau announced on Thursday he is running for Congress in Iowa’s 2nd District, which includes Cedar Rapids and covers much of northeastern Iowa. Techau has held both state and federal offices, but this is his first run for an elected office. Techau lives in Cedar Rapids with his wife, Stephanie. The couple have two adult children.
Techau is the first Democrat to launch a 2026 challenge to Republican incumbent Rep. Ashley Hinson.
“I don’t expect you to know who I am, because I’m not a career politician,” Techau tweeted on Thursday. “I have committed my career to serving our nation and standing up for what’s right.”
Techau grew up in Marion, and after graduating from Marion High School, he enrolled at the University of Iowa, earning a business degree before going onto law school for a JD. Techau served in the U.S. Air Force for seven years as a Judge Advocate. He also served in the Iowa Air National Guard for 20 years, reaching the rank of colonel and receiving the Legion of Merit medal.
In 2002, Gov. Tom Vilsack appointed Techau the state’s Commissioner of Public Safety, with responsibility for overseeing the Iowa State Patrol, the Department of Criminal Investigation, the Division of Narcotics Enforcement, the Iowa Fire Marshal’s Office and the Traffic Safety Bureau.
In 2013, President Obama nominated Techau to serve as U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Iowa, which covers 52 counties.
“Kevin W. Techau has distinguished himself as a fair, tenacious and respected attorney throughout his careers in both public and private service,” Obama said in a written statement about the nomination.
As the Gazette pointed out, Sen. Chuck Grassley made a floor speech in the Senate supporting Techau’s confirmation.
“Throughout his career, Mr. Techau has demonstrated his commitment to serving the people of Iowa and the United States,” Grassley said in his speech. “Finally, let me just add that I have known the Techau family for decades and I know Mr. Techau personally. He has even been a running partner of mine from time to time. He is a man of fine character and commitment. I believe he will serve as U.S. attorney with distinction and honor. I urge my colleagues to vote yes on this nomination.”
Techau served until the beginning of President Trump’s first term, when the new administration required all the U.S. Attorneys appointed by Obama to resign.
“As a U.S. Attorney, Techau … promoted cooperation and teamwork between federal, state and local authorities and worked on initiatives to bring offenders back into the workforce after they had served their prison time,” Trish Mehaffey reported in the Gazette when Techau stepped down in March 2017.
In a Facebook post on Thursday morning, Techau said he is running because “our state deserves better than the self-serving politicians who put corporate greed over the needs of everyday families.”
“Right now, Iowans are working hard but still falling behind — and all while an unaccountable, unelected billionaire is trying to rig our system for the 1% and special interests,” he wrote.
Techau is, of course, referring to Elon Musk, Trump’s largest campaign contributor who is being allowed to use his DOGE team to slash federal agencies in an unsupervised — and possibly illegal — manner, resulting in the loss of thousands of federal jobs, the freezing of funding to both international and domestic programs, and the potential acquisition of sensitive information about American citizens by people without the security clearance or proper authorization to have that information.
Techau’s statement immediately creates a point of contrast with Hinson. The three-term incumbent is a vocal supporter of Musk and DOGE.
“I think that this is exactly what the federal government needs,” Hinson said regarding DOGE during a conference call with Iowa reporters in February. “Taxpayers voted for accountability and transparency.”
At the end of last month, Hinson posted the video of a flattering Fox News interview with Musk and DOGE employees, calling it a “must-watch.”
Hinson was first elected to her seat in 2020, when she defeated freshman Democrat Abby Finkenaur by approximately 2 percentage points in what was then Iowa’s 1st Congressional District. (The congressional districts are numbered from east to west and the district covering Jackson County, which has the state’s easternmost point, is always the 1st. Jackson County changed districts in the redistricting following the 2020 census.)
Hinson, a former local TV news anchor who had served two terms in the Iowa House, quickly established herself as an extremely loyal Trump supporter, noticeable even in a freshman class of House Republicans eager to demonstrate their loyalty to Trump. Hinson has also been an enthusiastic promoter of Trump-era culture war issues.
Hinson remains a loyal Trump supporter. After financial markets began to collapse following President Trump’s announcement of a set of arbitrary tariffs on “Liberation Day” earlier this month, Hinson acknowledged “what the markets are doing” on a call with Iowa reporters, but said Trump should be given time to make his tariffs work.
“These are going to create new American opportunities and new jobs,” Hinson said. “The president’s goal here is to not only get other countries to the negotiating table, but really focused on helping to create more opportunity. And that’s what Americans really need right now, is opportunity.”
Hinson won reelection the first time in 2022, by defeating Democrat Liz Mathis, a former local TV news anchor who represented Linn County in the state Senate. Even though Mathis had great name recognition in the district from her years on TV, and received strong support from the state and national Democratic Party, Hinson beat her by 8 percentage points.
In 2024, Hinson faced Sarah Corkery, a first-time candidate who ran a grassroots campaign with almost no help from the Iowa Democratic Party and no help whatsoever from the national party, which had written off the 2nd District as solidly Republican and focused instead on electing Democrats in the 1st and 3rd Districts. Both those candidates lost, and Hinson won her race by 15 percentage points.
The district is still widely considered to be solidly Republican, but early this month the Democratic National Congressional Committee (DNCC) said in a news release it intends to target the 2nd District as well as the 1st and 3rd. According to the DNCC, Trump’s policies will make the Republican incumbents in all three districts vulnerable. (The DNCC will continue to ignore the 4th District. In the last two election cycles, Ryan Melton, the Democratic candidate, not only didn’t receive help from the national party, he couldn’t even get them to return his phone calls.)
In his social media posts on Thursday, Techau did not list any policies he would pursue in Congress, beyond saying he would “actually put the people of Iowa first, to tackle our toughest problems, and to deliver real results that drive real change.” His campaign site currently just has a biographical sketch of the candidate and links to donate and sign up for a newsletter.
Reacting to Techau’s announcement, Hinson’s campaign manager issued a written statement calling Techau a “radical leftist” who wants “open borders” and “woke policies,” is “out of touch with Iowa values” and would “rubber stamp” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s policies.
The 2026 general election is still 18-and-a-half-months away, giving Techau plenty of opportunities to counter the blizzard of Trumpian buzzwords the Hinson campaign is using to try to define a candidate who admits he’s not well known, despite years of public service.
“Over the course of this campaign, I look forward to working to earn your trust and your vote,” Technau said in his Thursday Facebook post.
