The 2026 election will be unlike any in decades. In addition to an open seat for governor and an open seat for U.S. Senate — a combination that hasn’t happened since 1968 — there are also open seats in two of Iowa’s four congressional districts and no incumbent running for State Auditor. In a state that reelects incumbents as the rate Iowa does — Chuck Grassley has been in the Senate for 45 years, Terry Branstad was the longest serving governor in U.S. history (ditto for Michael Fitzgerald as state treasurer and Tom Miller as state attorney general) — this verges on anarchy.
This is notably the first election for state and national offices since 1998 in which J. Ann Selzer won’t be conducting the Iowa Poll. Selzer was extremely reliable, until she suddenly wasn’t, and there’s no obvious replacement for her as the go-to pollster.
What follows is a quick guide to 2026 candidates for state and federal office. If some of the entries seem a little dismissive, that’s because some are. It would insult the reader’s intelligence if I pretended either of the septuagenarians running for Senate, neither of whom has won an election since Jimmy Carter was president, stand a serious chance of winning the Democratic nomination. Likewise, it’s pointless to pretend Ashley Hinson won’t be the Republican nominee for Senate and Rob Sand the Democratic nominee for governor.
Where it seems useful, I’ve included the fundraising totals for federal candidates from the FEC’s third quarter (Q3) for campaign finance reporting, a period covering July 1 to Sept. 30. Federal law requires candidates to file campaign finance reports if they raise or spend more than $5,000 during a reporting period. Q3 was the only reporting period in 2025 when all the candidates here were active. There’s more to winning elections than money, but fundraising often reflects the strength of a campaign. As this article goes to print, there are no equivalent reports available for state-level candidates.
*denotes an incumbent
GOVERNOR
Eddie Andrews (R)
The three-term Iowa House member from the Des Moines area says his campaign will be about sharing his “vision for Iowa,” which so far seems like pretty much doing what Reynolds has been doing. If Andrews wins the primary, he would be the Republicans’ first Black candidate for statewide office in Iowa.
Randy Feenstra (R)
The tepid frontrunner. He’s got millions in the bank, thanks to three terms in Congress representing the 4th District and all the time spent sucking up money as the presumptive Republican frontrunner during the months-long “exploratory” phase of his campaign. Despite full coffers and experience running for office, Feenstra’s campaign launch in October was oddly lackluster, and his campaign has remained lackluster. So far, the core of Feenstra’s strategy seems to be ignoring the other Republicans in the race, and skipping candidate forums. It might work. He probably has the best chance of getting Trump’s endorsement, although a MAGA group has an online petition begging Trump not to do it.
Zach Lahn (R)
Lahn co-founded a tech company with his wife. They also co-founded a private school in Kansas backed by Koch family money. Lahn used to be Montana state director for Koch’s Americans for Prosperity. His campaign site sells red “Iowa First” hats and claims Lahn won’t be beholden to anyone because, “I’m my own biggest donor.” Lahn has been endorsed by MAHA Action, a pro-RFK Jr. PAC. His family farm is near Belle Plaine.
Brad Sherman (R)
Pastor of the Solid Rock Christian Church in Coralville and co-founder of two “crisis pregnancy centers,” Sherman spent one term in the Iowa House representing Iowa County. Sherman is focused on suppressing reproductive choice, but he always finds time to also belligerently oppose LGBTQ rights.
Adam Steen (R)
Appointed director of the Iowa Department of Administrative Services (DAS) in 2021 by Gov. Reynolds, Steen resigned in August to run for governor. His legacy at DAS is two high-profile lawsuits. The first is over his refusal to let the Satanic Temple of Iowa hold a holiday event at the Capitol; the second seeks to reverse his order to close the state historical archives in Iowa City.
Rob Sand (D)
The inevitable nominee, and the strongest candidate Democrats will have nominated since they used to win gubernatorial elections during the Branstad-less interregnum of 1998-2010.
Julie Stauch (D)
In a different year, Stauch might be a serious contender for the nomination. Not this year.
Paul Dahl (D)
Never a serious contender. A perennial candidate, who, based on previous performance, probably won’t qualify for the primary ballot.
ATTORNEY GENERAL
* Brenna Bird (R)
When not defending book bans or anti-LGBTQ laws, Bird spends a lot of time supporting Trumpian lawsuits and threatening non-Iowa companies with policies she disapproves of, like filling prescriptions for mifepristone or having DEI initiatives. Polling shows Bird is unpopular, so expect a lot of out-of-state money to be spent on her behalf.
Nathan Willems (D)
So far, Willems’ greatest strength is he’s not Bird. A September poll showed him leading the AG, even though most people don’t know who he is. He’s an attorney from Mount Vernon who served two terms in the Iowa House.
SECRETARY OF STATE
* Paul Pate (R)
Like all Republican secretaries of state, Pate has to pretend Trump’s claims about voter fraud are serious, while also claiming there’s no problem in his state. The lack of any real problem in Iowa hasn’t stopped Pate from making it harder to vote in the name of “integrity.”
Ryan Peterman (D)
A Navy vet who moved back to the Quad Cities last year to be close to family (he grew up in Bettendorf, now lives in Davenport), Peterman believes he can do a better job than Pate to make voting both easier and secure. He probably can, but is unlikely to win.
STATE TREASURER
* Roby Smith (R)
Running for his second term. If he wins this year, Smith just needs to get reelected nine more times to equal the record of Democrat Michael Fitzgerald, who he beat in 2022.
If the Iowa Democratic Party was a fully functioning political party, there would already be Democratic candidate. But it’s not, so there isn’t.
IOWA AUDITOR OF STATE
Chris Cournoyer (R)
She was a state senator until Gov. Reynolds appointed her lieutenant governor in December 2024, after Adam Gregg resigned to spend more time with his family and the Iowa Bankers Association’s money. Cournoyer has Reynolds’ endorsement, for whatever that’s worth.
Abigail Maas (R)
A member of the Iowa County Board of Supervisors, Maas owns a flooring company and a horse boarding stable. Her campaign slogan? “Make Auditing Great Again!”
There is no Democratic candidate so far. Please see the previous remarks about the Iowa Democratic Party.
SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE
* Mike Naig (R)
If the Iowa Farm Bureau ever pulled a Dr. Frankenstein, Mike Naig is the creature it would create. By all accounts Naig is quite personable, so you might want to have a beer with him, but as long as Naig is Ag Sec, you’ll never be able to drink water straight from the Raccoon River.
Chris Jones (D)
Jones plans to officially announce his candidacy on Jan. 15. An expert on water quality and fierce critic of Big Ag who doesn’t mince words, Jones is the kind of candidate Iowa needs, but also the kind of candidate that would make both Democrats and Republicans nervous.
U.S. SENATE
Jim Carlin (R)
Remember him? The hardcore Trumper crushed by Chuck Grassley in the 2022 Republican primary? No worries if you don’t. You can watch Ashley Hinson do the same thing in this year’s primary.
Ashley Hinson (R)
If Fox News was a person, it would look and sound a lot like Ashley Hinson. Floating on an ocean of cash from her time in the House, plenty more money will flow in to Hinson this year as Republicans fight to hold onto Joni “we all are going to die” Ernst’s seat. Two days after Trump endorsed Hinson for Senate in September, she declared Trump is “going to go down as the best president in our history.” Hinson said that on Fox News, of course. Hinson raised $1.7 million in Q3, and combined with the millions she already raised, Hinson ended the quarter with $4,053,481 in the bank.
Joshua Smith (R)
Ran for Libertarian Party presidential nomination in 2024. Lost. Registered as a Republican in 2025. Will lose, assuming he’s even still running; his campaign site no longer exists.
Bob Krause (D)
Krause frequently runs for office, but the last time he was elected to anything was in the 1970s. That description will not change after this year’s election.
Richard Sherzan (D)
Like Krause, Sherzan was elected to the Iowa House in the 1970s. Like Krause, he’s run for office since (twice for the U.S. Senate in Arizona), but has never won a primary. As with Krause, there will be no need to update that description this year. Neither candidate appears to have a campaign site.
Aside from progressive values, what the other three Democrats have in common are compelling life stories.
Center: Josh Turek (campaign photo); Right: Zach Wahls (campaign photo)
Nathan Sage (D)
Sage grew up in western Iowa in a family that struggled to make ends meet. He served in both the Marine Corps and the Army. Sage eventually became director of the Knoxville Chamber of Commerce, helping small, local businesses.
Josh Turek (D)
Born with spina bifida resulting from his father’s exposure to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, Turek underwent the first of many surgeries on the day he was born. He went on to become a gold-medal-winning Paralympian in wheelchair basketball, and has spent much of his life trying to help others, especially people who use wheelchairs, overcome their challenges. His first run for the Iowa House was in 2022, and he won his Council Bluffs district by a small margin. Turek was reelected in 2024 with a larger margin.
Zach Wahls (D)
Wahls first made national news as a 19-year-old in 2011 for a speech in front of the Iowa House Judiciary Committee in opposition to a constitutional amendment that would have banned same-sex marriage in Iowa. The following year, My Two Moms: Lessons of Love, Strength, and What Makes a Family, an autobiographical book he co-wrote with Bruce Littlefield, was published. Also in 2012, Wahls, an Eagle Scout, launched Scouts for Equality to push the Boy Scouts of America to drop anti-LGBTQ policies, and he spoke at the Democratic National Convention. Six years later, he ran for the open Iowa Senate seat in the district that includes Coralville and won. He was reelected in 2022.
Sage is a first-time candidate. Wahls is experienced, but has never run outside of Democrat-friendly Johnson County. Turek is one of only two Democrats from western Iowa currently in the Iowa House. In Q3, Sage raised $410,501, Wahls raised $646,658 and Turek raised $1,008,592.
IA-01
* Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R)
Miller-Meeks lived in the district she was running in when she first won her seat in 2020. But after district lines were redrawn following the 2020 census, the home she has shared with her husband for two decades ended up in IA-03. Instead of running against the Democratic incumbent in that district, Miller-Meeks said she’d move into her old/newly redrawn district. She didn’t. She did rent an apartment in Davenport for a while, and listed that as her official residence for voting purposes, but gave up that pretense last year and is once again registered to vote at her home in IA-03. That means unless she rents another apartment in IA-01, Miller-Meeks can vote for Zach Nunn in November but not for herself. Whether that matters to other voters remains to be seen. Wherever she lives, the IA-01 incumbent raised $806,731 in Q3.
David Pautsch (R)
The founder of Quad Cities Prayer Breakfast, Pautsch ran against Miller-Meeks in the 2024 primary and lost. Despite his loud devotion to Donald Trump, Pautsch didn’t get an endorsement last time, and this time Trump has endorsed Miller-Meeks (for the first time ever). Pautsch does, however, have the endorsement of the My Pillow guy. He raised $7,895 in Q3.
Christina Bohannan (D)
At this point, Bohannan is pretty much the incumbent Democratic nominee in the 1st District. She ran against Miller-Meeks in 2022 and 2024, and lost both times. Of course, every Iowa Democrat running for Congress lost in 2022 and 2024. Campaign donors don’t seem discouraged by the losses — Bohannan raised $1,059,732 in Q3.
Travis Terrell (D)
A first-time candidate who understands he has little chance of raising much money or winning endorsements, Terrell launched his campaign in April using the money he’d been saving for a vacation. The Ottumwa native said he wanted to make sure someone was standing up for the progressive values he prizes. He won’t win, but he knows that. Terrell raised $12,990 between April and the end of September.
Taylor Wettach (D)
A Muscatine boy made good, Wettach was an attorney at a major law firm, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, until that firm decided to try to placate Trump last year by agreeing to perform $125 million in pro bono legal work for the president. Wettach quit, moved back to Muscatine and in July launched his run in IA-01. He raised $429,099 in Q3.
IA-02
Shannon Lundgren (R)
Lundgren is in her fifth term in the Iowa House.
Charlie McClintock (R)
McClintock is in his second term in the Iowa Senate. Before that, he spent a year in the Iowa House.
The two have much in common. Neither Lundgren nor McClintock has an “issues” section on their campaign site, but both use their sites to boast about being an early Trump endorser in 2015. Lundgren: “I proudly supported Donald J. Trump back in August of 2015, and I’ve stood with him every day since.” McClintock: “As one of Iowa’s first endorsers of President Trump and supporters for his reelection campaign…”
Joe Mitchell (R)
Mitchell, however, has the best claim to being the Trumpiest candidate. Mitchell was first elected to the Iowa House in 2018, when he was 21. He served two terms before losing a Republican primary. In 2020, he co-founded Run Gen Z to get young Trump supporters to enter politics. Mitchell held a couple of low-level jobs in the first Trump administration. He’s been endorsed by Turning Point USA.
Lundgren announced she was running one week before the end of the Q3 reporting period and did not file a campaign finance report. McClintock launched his campaign 26 days before the end of Q3 and raised $14,307. Mitchell announced four days after McClintock and raised $407,555.
Kathy Dolter (D)
The former dean of nursing at Kirkwood and a former Army nurse (she retired as a lieutenant colonel), Dolter lists repealing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act as a top priority on her campaign site. The first-time candidate raised $39,109 in Q3.
Lindsay James (D)
One of two ordained ministers running in IA-02, James, a Presbyterian pastor and chaplain, currently bears all the marks of a frontrunner. She’s in her fourth term representing Dubuque in the Iowa House, which shows she can run a successful campaign. James has endorsements from prominent Iowa Democrats and from an important national fundraising group (Emily’s List), as well as from a celebrity with local connections (Kate Mulgrew, a Dubuque native, who was the first woman to play the lead character in a Star Trek TV series). James raised $293,649 in six weeks during Q3.
Guy Morgan (D)
Morgan manages a hotel in Boone, which is not in the district. He does not live in the district. He will not win in the district.
Don Primus (D)
Primus is the former manager of Pine Lake State Park. He doesn’t have a campaign site or a campaign staff, or any chance of winning.
Clint Twedt-Ball (D)
The other ordained minister in the IA-02 Democratic primary, Twedt-Ball, a former Methodist pastor, co-founded the nonprofit Matthew 25 in Cedar Rapids in 2006. He’s a first-time candidate, but his experience with Matthew 25 — which began by rehabbing houses for people in need, then started Iowa’s first urban farm, followed by a farmers market, a pay-what-you-will cafe and a grocery store in an area without one — shows he’s an effective leader who can do a lot with a little. Twedt-Ball raised $218,815 in Q3.
Dave Bushaw (I)
The only independent candidate ever elected to Congress from Iowa is Albert Raney Anderson, who won in the state’s longgone 8th District in 1886. He was defeated in the next election, but given how much effort Democrats and Republicans will put into winning IA-02 this year, Anderson is in no danger of having to share his historical distinction with Bushaw.
IA-03
* Zach Nunn (R)
When Gov. Reynolds announced in April she wasn’t seeking another term, it was widely expected Nunn would run for governor. But after “prayerful consideration” and pressure from President Trump, Nunn is running for a third term in the 3rd. He’s started moderating some of his MAGA positions, perhaps feeling pressure as the election approaches. But so far it seems no amount of pressure can persuade Nunn to hold town halls with his constituents. Nunn raised $524,657 in Q3.
Xavier Carrigan (D)
Carrigan moved to Iowa in 2023 from his home state of Ohio, where he ran unsuccessfully in a 2020 Democratic congressional primary. He says he doesn’t want to “build a political career,” which is probably for the best. He didn’t file a campaign finance report in Q3.
Sarah Trone Garriott (D)
If any of the Democrats make Nunn nervous, it’s probably state Sen. Sarah Trone Garriott. She has a record of beating tough Republican opponents. In her first run for Iowa Senate in 2020, she beat the Republican mayor of Clive for an open seat that had been held by a Republican. Redistricting moved Trone Garriott into a district with Senate President Jake Chapman, an 18-year incumbent, and she beat him. Republicans won’t even be able to accuse her of being a “godless liberal,” because she’s a Lutheran minister. Trone Garriott raised $437,684 in Q3.
Jennifer Konfrst (D)
The Windsor Heights representative has been one of the most prominent Democrats in the Iowa Legislature in recent years, and was House Minority Leader until she stepped down in May to launch her run for Congress. In her first campaign for the Iowa House in 2018, Konfrst ran against an incumbent Republican and lost. Two years later, the incumbent moved out of the district and Konfrst won the open seat. She’s been reelected twice. Konfrst raised $175,556 in Q3.
IA-04
Chris McGowan (R)
In June, after it was clear Randy Feenstra would run for governor instead of reelection, McGowan was the first Republican to enter the race in the 4th. He’s worked as a political consultant for Republicans for decades, but this is his first run for office. McGowan is president of Siouxland Chamber of Commerce and currently serves as chair of the Iowa Chamber Alliance. He raised $372,285 in Q3.
Ryan Rhodes (R)
If western Iowans want a candidate with an impressive culture-war resume, Rhodes may be their man. He was the leader of the Iowa Tea Party, worked on Ben Carson’s 2016 presidential campaign and is co-owner and former CEO of the rightwing social media app Parler. Rhodes reported raising $183,205 in Q3, but $100,000 of that was a loan he provided to his campaign.
Christian Schlaefer (R)
A farmer and software consultant, Schlaefer is a loyal Trumper who believes it’s time to think about how to move Trumpism forward without Trump being in office. It’s unlikely Trump shares that belief. Schlaefer didn’t file a campaign finance report for Q3.
Matt Windschitl (R)
Windschitl has been in the Iowa House since 2007, and served as Majority Leader from 2020 until July, when he stepped down to launch his run for Congress. Windschitl’s signature accomplishment in the legislature has been to invalidate almost all regulations on firearms in Iowa and make it almost impossible to pass new ones. He raised $67,425 in Q3.
The last time western Iowa sent a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives was in 1982, when Tom Harkin was reelected in the 5th District. That district no longer exists, and the chance of a Democrat winning the 4th this year is equally nonexistent. It’s one of the most solidly Republican districts in the country. Still, as Ryan Melton proved when he ran in the 4th in 2002 and 2024 — with no help from the IDP or the national party — it’s important to have a candidate in the race to raise issues and inspire others to run for office. This year, there are three Democrats running in the 4th:
Dave Dawson (D)
Stephanie Steiner (D)
Ashley WolfTornabane (D)
This article was originally published in Little Village’s January 2026 issue.
