Hundreds gathered at the Pentacrest on Saturday morning for the No Kings Vote Early rally. The Iowa City rally was one of almost 3,000 No Kings events across the county, including 30 in Iowa, intended to boost early voting ahead of the Nov. 3 election. The crowd in Iowa City was smaller than the last […]
Chris Jones
Posted inCommunity/News
First-time candidate Chris Jones is cutting through the cropaganda on a mission to fire Iowa’s ‘secretary of agribusiness’
There are 36 million acres in Iowa, and 30 million are devoted to agriculture. Of those, 25 million are planted with corn and soybeans. “You have only two species of plants on 70 percent of our land,” Chris Jones told the packed meeting room at Iowa Lakes Community College in Emmetsburg on the evening of […]
Posted inLetters
Letter from the publisher: Iowa’s environmental crises demand a split from the status quo
By Jordan Sellergren, Little Village publisher This magazine has not published a campaign endorsement in 25 years, but given our history of reporting on Iowa’s water quality crisis, it should come as no surprise that Little Village is standing squarely behind one candidate in 2026. Chris Jones’ campaign for Secretary of Agriculture has raised the […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Clean water candidate Chris Jones is realizing he ‘actually might win’ against Ag Sec Mike Naig, endorsed by Iowa Farm Bureau
“Back in November, I signed up to be a sacrificial lamb,” Chris Jones, the Democratic candidate for Secretary of Agriculture, told the overflow crowd at Captain Roy’s bar and restaurant in Des Moines on Sunday evening. “And then something happened — I don’t really even know what — and now it looks like we actually […]
Posted inCommunity/News
‘The outrage has finally arrived’: Naig challenger Chris Jones calls for systemic changes to Iowa agriculture at state fair
The Democratic candidate for Iowa secretary of agriculture told Iowa State Fair attendees Saturday that “the outrage has finally arrived” for the state of Iowa’s water, and said systemic change rather than incremental fixes is the way to clear up waterways and improve other areas of Iowans’ lives. Chris Jones criticized “Band-Aid approaches” to fixing […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Democratic candidates attend farmers’ forum: ‘We can’t be saying we feed the world when we can’t feed Polk County’
Nearly 100 Iowa Farmers Union members from across the state came out Saturday to learn how several Iowa Democratic nominees plan on leading change — especially for the ag industry and the struggling farm economy. The event at Big Oak Barn in Elkhart kicked off with Sarah Trone Garriott, a Democrat who is running for […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Central Iowa Water Works asks its 600,000 customers to ‘use water wisely’ as nitrate levels spike
It has been almost a year since Central Iowa Water Works (CIWW) had to impose an unprecedented outdoor watering ban on the 600,000 residential and business customers it serves in the Greater Des Moines area and beyond because of the high levels of nitrate pollution in the Raccoon and Des Moines rivers. Now, the water […]
Posted inComics
Public Nuisance — March 2026
This comic was originally published in Little Village’s March 2026 issue.
Posted inCommunity/News
Democrat Wade Dooley ends his campaign for Secretary of Ag, leaving Chris Jones to face incumbent Mike Naig in November
Two months after announcing his run for Iowa Secretary of Agriculture, Democrat Wade Dooley ended his campaign on Wednesday. “This is my first foray into statewide campaigning, and it’s been an eye-opener,” Dooley said in a written statement. “The amount of time, staff and money that it takes is truly daunting. And at this point […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Why do we live in a ‘shithole’? A new docuseries on Iowa’s 50-year decline seeks answers
“I keep asking, why is it we’re living in a shithole?” Art Cullen says in What’s Eating Iowa?, his new documentary series launched Tuesday. The first episode, “Water,” is now available on YouTube. It’s the damaged state of Iowa’s water, and the damage that water is doing, that prompts Cullen’s question. Cullen, the Pulitzer Prize-winning […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Chris Jones, water quality advocate and author, considers run for Iowa Ag Secretary: ‘We need to rethink agriculture’
Chris Jones, author of The Swine Republic and one of Iowa’s leading water quality advocates, has created an exploratory committee as he considers a run for Secretary of Agriculture next year. “I think we need to rethink agriculture,” Jones told journalist Nina B. Elkadi. “Nobody’s happy. So why are we going to keep doing what […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Authors and journalists at the Okoboji Writers’ Retreat discuss the art of speaking truth to power
It’s a long drive from Iowa City to Lake Okoboji. Like most of my colleagues, I’ve never been to Northwest Iowa, and I was curious to visit this red and rural section of our former swing state. The scenery was serenely flat in all directions, punctuated by silos, windmills, telegraph poles, fenceposts, Trump signs and […]
