Two of Iowa’s most prominent Democratic candidates have urged former Vice-President Kamala Harris to stay away from their state ahead of the midterms.
Iowa gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand was asked by POLITICO’s Jonathan Martin whether he wanted Harris to come and campaign for him.
“No thanks,” he responded: Let’s move on. We need some new leadership.”
Asked whether Harris should run again in 2028, his answer was similarly emphatic.
”No,” he said.
Obama-endorsed Iowa Democrat U.S. Senate nominee Josh Turek has portrayed himself as a “common-sense” moderate, even as his official legislative newsletter advised illegal immigrants on avoiding ICE detainment and as he called for an “easier pathway to citizenship.”
Turek, who has been an Iowa state representative since 2023, is running against Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA). He has described himself as a “prairie populist” and a “common-sense” lawmaker capable of appealing to “Iowans of all political stripes.”
But Turek’s immigration record complicates that moderate pitch.
Turek’s official legislative newsletter included guidance for illegal immigrants on avoiding detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
A section of Turek’s newsletter titled “Know Your Rights as an Immigrant,” which includes a link to the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) “Immigrants’ Rights” page, stated:
Given the recent policy changes enacted by the Trump administration on both legal and illegal immigrants, I wanted to provide a thorough list of your rights and how they apply in different scenarios. The ACLU is a great resource that provides tips on what to do in various situations. Please click here to read more.
Turek first called for “an easier pathway to citizenship” for illegal immigrants in April and used the same phrase again this month in an interview with the Cedar Rapids Gazette.
Republican Iowa gubernatorial candidate Zach Lahn released a campaign ad Thursday saying Democrat rival Rob Sand plans to raise the average Iowan’s taxes by $7,500 a year.
The 30-second spot was provided exclusively to Breitbart News ahead of its public release. Filmed on Lahn’s farm in Belle Plaine, it opens on rising costs before cutting to an attack on Sand, the state auditor and Democrat nominee for governor. The ad casts Sand as a billionaire out of touch with working families.
In it, Lahn ties the cost of gas and groceries to his opponent and delivers the central charge directly to camera.
“But Rob Sand wants to raise your taxes by $7,500 a year. You can look it up. He is a billionaire. He doesn’t get what regular folks go through. He’s opposed tax cuts his whole career,” Lahn says in the ad. “I’m going to do everything in my power to help Iowa families as governor, because I know how hard you work. Iowa First.”
Lahn’s campaign argued the attack is grounded in Sand’s personal wealth. In a statement, campaign spokesman Dan Capodilupo said Sand’s opposition to tax cuts is easier to understand given who covers his expenses.
“It’s easy for Rob Sand to oppose tax cuts for families when someone else is paying his bills,” Capodilupo said. “His entire lifestyle and political career have both been financed by his father-in-law’s chemical fortune.”
The campaign claimed Sand married into the Lauridsen Group, Inc. (LGI), a family-owned chemical company, and asserted that Sand’s family has bankrolled his campaigns “to the tune of $13 million, the most in Iowa history.” The campaign described Sand’s operation as “effectively the seventh wholly owned subsidiary of LGI.”
Sand’s documented tax positions include a higher tax on out-of-state landowners, a ban on hedge funds and LLCs buying Iowa farmland, and ending state tax breaks for data centers. He has said he would consider an increase in the state cigarette tax to address Iowa’s cancer rates.
Sand’s campaign has cast Lahn as the outsider in the race. Press secretary Maddie Moher said Sand “has spent his career working with Republicans, Democrats, and independents to hold government accountable, uncover misspent taxpayer dollars, and deliver results for Iowans,” and would do the same as governor.
“Zach Lahn is a career political operative, and his latest attacks are a distraction from his own record and frequent flights to Kansas,” Moher said, referring to Sand’s line of attack over Lahn’s ties to Wichita.
Sand, of Decorah, has served as state auditor since 2019 and is the only Democrat holding statewide office in Iowa. He built his profile prosecuting the Hot Lotto rigging scandal as an assistant attorney general and has centered his campaign on lowering costs for Iowa families.
The ad comes as Lahn, a venture firm owner and Make America Healthy Again supporter, tries to hold an open seat Republicans have held since 2011, with Gov. Kim Reynolds not seeking reelection. Lahn won the GOP primary in a June upset, edging Trump-endorsed Rep. Randy Feenstra by less than a point.
In almost all of the world, in multi-religious societies, we all know who is getting threatened by who.
Just look at Nigeria, for instance. If you’re a Christian, or even a secularist, you know full well who is threatening you, and it’s generally people of one certain faith.
But in America, if you’re significantly shielded enough — at least if you’re not one of the people in one of two twin towers some 25 years ago — you can believe that the real threat is from Christians.
In that vein, meet Sarah Trone Garriott. She’s a member of the Iowa Senate who’s running as the Democratic nominee in the state’s 3rd Congressional District.
She’s also, like another prominent Democrat we see trying to flip a congressional seat, a nominal Christian figure. Instead of “Presbyterian seminarian,” however, this time she’s a Lutheran minister.
It’s something the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee touted when they started spending money on her campaign to oust Rep. Zach Nunn, a Republican.
“Sarah Trone Garriott has spent her life showing up for her community, and now she’s running for Congress to continue that service: standing up to protect health care, get costs down, and always do what’s right for Iowa,” DCCC Chair Suzan DelBene said back in February, according to the Des Moines Register.
An Iowa television anchor who announced Friday that he is leaving the news industry used his final broadcast to criticize what he described as sanitized journalism.
Dustin Nolan, who has spent years waking up early with viewers as the morning anchor for Davenport’s KWQC-TV, announced he is leaving the news industry for good, and he used his parting moments to take a serious swing at the state of modern journalism. In a passionate goodbye, where he became emotional at times, Nolan thanked the community for letting him into their living rooms every morning.
“I have chosen to step away from the news industry,” Nolan said. “Before I say goodbye, I just want to say, I hope every one of you that’s allowed me to be a part of your mornings knows just how important that I have taken this job [and] how much it means to me that you’ve trusted me these past few years to bring you the news in the morning. I promise you, I’ve given you everything I have. I’ve never tried to be perfect, or what many think a newsman should be, supposed to be, but I have always done my best to be transparent, bringing you the facts, and I’ve always been myself.”
Nolan said local news organizations should do more than follow trends or deliver “sanitized news.”
“I’ve always believed that we, as a local news station, owe you, the viewers, the best that we can do, because without you, none of us would be able to do this job,” the departing anchor continued. “I also believe that we, as a local news station, have to be more than trends or sanitized news, because it makes people feel uncomfortable. That’s why the facts matter, and that’s why we do what we do here. We have to take people out of their bubbles and comfort zones and make them think about the world we all live in.”
A Democrat congressional candidate in Iowa apologized on a previous campaign website for being white and said she “benefited greatly from privilege.”
In 2020, now congressional nominee Lindsay James had a section on her campaign site called “A Confession” in which she addressed her skin color and so-called “privilege,” the Daily Caller reported Wednesday. “I am a white, cis-gender, able bodied, middle class, college educated woman,” the archived site for her Iowa state legislature campaign read.
James’s “confession” continued:
There is no doubt that I have worked hard to get where I am in my life, but I have also benefited greatly from privilege. My personal journey of self-examination as it relates to my own privilege has not been perfect, but I am committed to doing the hard work of honest self-reflection, considering critical feedback when given, and working every day to better myself and use my privilege to advocate for others.
–Rep. Lindsay James (she/her)
James’ website also claimed there was discrimination against LGBTQ people in health care, education, housing, and employment.
The Iowa Capital Dispatch reported Tuesday that “James will face Republican former state Rep. Joe Mitchell in the general election for Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District,” noting that the district “includes Cedar Rapids, Waterloo, Dubuque and Mason City. It has been represented by a Republican since 2021, and is currently held by U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson, who is not seeking another term to run for the U.S. Senate.”
After serving his sentence, with credit for roughly eight months already spent in custody, Roberts will be immediately turned over to ICE and deported back to Guyana.
The illegal alien ran Iowa’s largest school district, serving 30,000 students, from July 2023 until his ICE arrest on September 26 of last year.
Before that, Roberts was superintendent of the Millcreek Township School District in Erie, Pennsylvania, the second largest in Erie County, overseeing thousands more American children.
Roberts entered the U.S. in 1999 on a student visa, which expired in 2004.
NBC News reports:
Roberts became the first Black educator to helm Des Moines Public Schools when he was hired in 2023 to lead the district of about 30,000 students.
After submitting a Social Security card and a driver’s license as verifying documents, Roberts stated he was a U.S. citizen in his application to the state board of educational examiners, which issued him a professional administrator license in 2023, the district said.
Before the sentencing, Roberts’ lawyers confirmed that was not true.
“Dr. Roberts made a fatal mistake when he completed an I-9 to work with Des Moines Public Schools … falsely affirming he was a United States citizen,” his lawyers wrote in a 173-page brief to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa.
When agents went to arrest him, Roberts attempted to flee.
Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed House File 2676, known as the MAHA ( Make American Healthy Again) bill, on May 20, 2026. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attended the signing.
The bill includes a large health-policy package, but possibly the most notable reform is the elementary school screen time limit which limits screen time during the school day for elementary school students. As part of the reform, the bill requires that schools limit daily device exposure for young students, increases required physical activity during the school day, and implements healthier school lunch standards.
Other reforms in the bill include restrictions on SNAP eligible foods, removal of certain food dyes from school meals, permission for over-the-counter ivermectin, and nutrition education requirements for medical professionals.
The screen time limit is the most unique reform as research is now showing that excessive screen time negatively effects the intellectual, physical and social development of children. The bill requires that schools rebalance time toward more physical movement and in-person engagement.
The law requires a cap of 60 minutes a day of screen time/digital instruction for K-5 students with exceptions for special education needs/individualized programs. It also balances this with the requirement minimum of two hours of physical activity per week. This is a statewide, uniform statute which will require every public school to adjust curricula, schedules, and teaching activities.
Other states have passed laws to limit cell phone usage in schools, but none have put a limit on instructional technology usage other than restrictions of which programs and social media may be used while in school.
Iowa ties the law to physical health, fitness, and chronic‑disease prevention, alongside fitness tests and activity requirements while other state laws frame bans strictly on distraction, bullying, or mental‑health issues. Iowa’s ban also specifies “instructional screen time,” not just usage of technology in school.
Implementation of the law needs to be planned and provided to schools. It is not clear about the definition of digital instruction nor does it provide steps for monitoring technology minutes in schools.
It is also possible that there could legal challenges to the law from those promoting local control or from commercial vendors who currently provide technology in the schools.
The lawsuit claims the harvesting was done without even attempting to contact his children.
Martin Gillespie, a proud Air Force veteran described by family as a loving father of three and grandfather of eight, was pronounced dead on April 1 at Alegent Health Community Memorial Hospital in Missouri Valley.
According to the lawsuit, obtained by Law & Crime, Gillespie never authorized any anatomical gifts or organ donation during his lifetime.
The complaint alleges that hospital staff made “no attempt to contact” Gillespie’s next of kin, his daughters, Christina Gubbels and Daun Stoddard, before referring his body to the Iowa Donor Network.
Hours later, on the same day, the Iowa Donor Network harvested his organs, skin tissue, and eyes.
Gillespie’s body was then transported to Hennessey Funeral Home in Missouri Valley for cremation.
In the latest example of anti conservative bias, a student government impeached its president due to his ties to TPUSA, according to a report from Campus Reform.
“Iowa State University’s Student Government voted to impeach President Colby Brandt during its Feb. 19 meeting for his affiliation with the Campus Victory Project.”
The Campus Victory Project is connected to TPUSA and helps students find leadership positions on campus.
If it was MoveOn.org, or another left wing group that the student was connected with, its doubtful he would be facing impeachment.
As usual, conservatism and patriotism are under attack on American campuses.
The student group impeached him on many “accounts,” including “Violation of the Oath of Office, claimed that Brandt failed to perform his duties “for the benefit of all students.”
“Brandt was also charged with Failure of a Representative, which claimed that he did not represent all students due to his obligations to CVP.”
Of course, they are simply claiming this and drumming up other accusations due to his affiliation with TPUSA.
Brandt declined to comment to Campus Reform, but instead is holding off till the student government Supreme Court adjudicates.
It was alleged during a meeting that the student group which impeached Brandt is not openly partisan in favor of left wing and Democrat causes.
“Any student who needs assistance or wants to create a project on the inclusivity, diversity, equity, and accessibility needs on campus can count on us,” the committee description states.
The assault on the rights of conservatives and free speech continues despite doublespeak about inclusivity.
One can hope that Brandt wins his case and remains in the position he rightfuly deserves.
Hellbound and Down 
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