Iowa Democratic Candidate for Governor Tries New Strategy to Win: Crapping on Democrats
Rob Sand's run toward the middle leaves a lot of Democrats feeling like the water in the Racoon River ...which is to say, pretty shitty.
Full disclosure, I haven’t attended any Rob Sand’s townhalls. It sounds like a lot of folks who have really liked what he had to say and the auditoriums have been packed. That’s great news. I read that a few Republicans and Independents have been showing up. That’s also great news in a state where Republicans have a decisive registration advantage over Democrats. And it’s great news because Rob is the only statewide elected Democrat who was re-elected in 2022 when many other venerable and long-serving Dems lost their seats.
Most Iowa Democrats believe Sand is our best shot at retaking the governor’s seat, especially now that it is an open election with Kim Reynolds announcing she won’t seek another term.
As of today, only one Democrat has stepped forward to challenge Sand for the Democratic nomination, Julie Stauch, a long-time Democratic campaign worker with far less name-recognition and far less than the $8 million Sand currently has in his war chest.
All signs show that the nomination is Rob’s for the taking.
Which is probably why he’s already running for the general election with his messaging. Primaries are a great opportunity for challenger candidates to get their message out early. And while Sand isn’t a challenger in the strictest sense since it is an open seat, considering that the state is in the stranglehold of ten years of single-party Republican rule and super majorities in both chambers of the legislature, Sand has a challenge ahead of him any way you slice it.
Most candidates in a primary try their best to appeal to the base of their party while staying away from hot button and highly partisan issues that can be used against them in the general. It’s a tough needle to thread but primaries, when done right, can help refine a candidate’s position on important issues, improve their appeal to the voters through real-life message testing and help shape the key issues of an election by framing the messaging early. After a candidate wins their party’s nomination, their message will tend to gravitate toward the middle, depending on the makeup of the electorate, in the hopes of appealing to a broader base of support. We know, in Iowa, any Democrat who hopes to win statewide, has to convince Republican and Independent voters to cross party lines.
So Sand has decided to start his campaign from the middle. All things considered, not a terrible strategy. He has a whole year to bang his drum and convince Iowa voters why he’d make a better governor by talking about issues folks care about. While the clown-car of Republican gubernatorial candidates will be busy duking it out to see who will receive Trump’s blessing, even as Dear Leader’s agenda and popularity ratings tank, Sand can look like a sensible, pragmatic and decent person to the Iowans who might be growing tired of the histrionics of the current administration and the gross mismanagement of Reynolds.
But in his effort to appeal to conservative Iowans, Sand has chosen one message that stinks worse than a CAFO - especially to the people who he needs most.
Sand said he chose his party because he had to chose one or the other in order to vote in a primary. He referred to it as “picking [his] poison” as part of a larger point he was making about partisanship run amok in today’s politics.
He’s not wrong about partisanship but calling the Democratic party “poison” just doesn’t sit right with me.
Listen, I have been sharply critical of the Democratic Party and of Democratic electeds and candidates both in our state and nationally. I have no rose-colored glasses when in comes to the ways in which our party has failed to live up to our values, run weak campaigns or capitulated when it should have doubled down.
But I am not a Democrat because I had to “pick a poison” - I am a Democrat because I believe in the things the Democratic party stands for. I left the Republican party in 2008 because I believed in the hope of a health care system that worked for everyone, something the Republicans vehemently opposed. I was a No Party voter until 2016 when I registered as a Democrat at the door of the caucus to cast my vote for Hillary because I believed she could bring an end to the scourge of gun violence in our schools and communities. Both of those hopes remain unrealized — not because they are bad ideas and not because they are unpopular but more often than not, because of Democrats in Congress who turned their back on Democratic party values to run toward the middle.
A Gallup Poll released in December 2024 showed that 62% of American adults want the government to insure all Americans have health coverage
Polling in 2023 showed that 86% of Americans support universal background checks for gun purchases
These aren’t just Democratic values. They are American values and that makes me proud to support my party. I don’t think it is too much to ask for the nominee-apparent at the top of the ticket express more than just, at best, ambivalence and at worse, embarrassment over our party.
See, Sand might need Republicans to turn out to vote for him, but he needs Democrats to knock those doors, make those calls and donate those dollars that help turn out the R’s. Being at the top of the ballot, his brand will trickle down to every other Dem on the ticket, too. If you’re running in a tough Iowa House or Senate race, how do you overcome a candidate at the top of the ticket who implies he chose his party affiliation with a flip of a coin?
Sand has done more to reach out to non-Democratic voters than probably any Democrat who has run in Iowa in the last ten years, regularly appearing on right-wing radio and making genuine effort to seem relatable to folks outside of Polk County. But I don’t think that outreach needs to include taking pot shots at the party of the folks who have shown up to knock doors for him, put his signs in their yards, donated money and hosted house parties to help him win.
I’m not expecting blind allegiance and I’m not asking Sand to be Saul Alinsky. But I do think there are lots of ways for Sand to talk about the negative consequences of partisanship without making Democrats like me feel like he’s kind of grossed out by our party — and just because he says he’s equally grossed out by Republicans doesn’t make me feel any less sheepish. It’s absurd to say “both parties are bad” when one is currently working to pass a bill that will cause the closure one out of every four nursing homes in the United States and that sat on its hands while its leader fomented an insurrection that called for the public execution of the sitting vice president.
We are not the same.
I hope Sand will find the courage of his convictions to not try to hide his party affiliation behind a fig leaf. A lot of Iowa Democrats believe in him, but he has to believe in us too.
©2025, Amber Gustafson
Amber Gustafson is a mother of three from Ankeny, Iowa. She grew up on a farm in the southwest corner of the state and has a B.A. from Iowa State University and a MAC from Drake University. She is a member of Kappa Tau Alpha Journalism Honor Society, Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) and Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP). For more than a decade she has been a non-profit leader, community organizer and public advocate for the lives, health and safety of Iowans, running for Iowa Senate in 2018. You can read more of her work at Bleeding Heartland and The Des Moines Register and read more about her in The Washington Post.
She is currently working on a book about her family’s experience living through the 1980’s Farm Crisis, poverty, the prosperity gospel and a multi-level marketing cult.
For interview and speaking requests, please email ambergus.iowa(at)gmail.com.
You are not wrong, again.
I hope Rob changes his approach.
Caring about others, believing that we should all be equal under law, standing up for public education and commitment to the freedoms outlined in our Bill of Rights is not poison. I'm a Democrat and proud that we believe we are one people, one nation.
Oh, and women having control of their own bodies.
Common sense for a better Iowa.
Not poison.
Thank you, Amber.
Thank you, Amber I have not supported the messaging and strategy of the Democratic Party in Iowa for about 10 years—or the national party, for that matter.
Amber, in her essay, did an excellent job of capturing why I instinctively bristle at how Rob attacks the Democrats. For the past decade, I've believed the way to criticize state and national Democrats should focus on strategy and messaging. I believe that through good strategy and smart messaging, you can articulate clear, simple yet nuanced positions that avoid getting labeled as a "Democratic socialist." Rob can appeal to Republicans while simultaneously attacking some Republican policies as bad for Iowa. His comments almost portray Republicans and Democrats as equivalent in terms of policy.
Rob Sand doesn't have to step on Democrats to explain his concerns with some isolated, rigid positions that certain Democratic individuals or groups insist upon. He could demonstrate how he would run government more collaboratively—like other Democratic governors who have worked effectively with Republicans and others who disagreed with them.
Instead of his approach of describing politics as "picking between two poisons" as he runs to the middle, he could frame his positions more constructively. All his current messaging does is reinforce cynicism toward government and politics, which in turn only reinforces the anti-government views that benefit Trump and his ilk.