Austin Frerick Endorsed By “Run With Pride,” A National LGBTQ Organization

3rd Congressional District Democratic candidate Austin Frerick will be getting some help from a national organization dedicated to helping elect LGBTQ candidates to office. Run With Pride announced their endorsement of Frerick earlier this week as part of a slate of Democrats running for Congress that they plan to support in 2018.

“Austin Frerick is one of sharpest candidates we’ve come across,” said Mike Watts, executive director of Run With Pride in a press release. “His detailed, progressive platform, his expert economic know-how, and his commitment to the American public make him an invaluable figure in the fight for equality.”

Frerick has focused his campaign largely on economic messages, emphasizing issues like breaking up monopolies, ending wealth concentration and reinstating the Glass-Stegall Act. He’s also put out a number of in-depth policy proposals from environmental issues to college affordability.

“I’m honored to receive Run with Pride’s endorsement,” Frerick said. “I don’t actually spend much time thinking about the historic nature of my candidacy. I spend my time thinking about how attacking monopoly power can help make life better for Iowans in the Third Distract. But I look to Iowa’s history and I think about the Iowans have been leading the way on the fight for gay rights for decades, and the Iowans who have been the vanguard of every major civil rights movement in American history – from abolitionism to suffrage. It would be wonderful to see the Third District make history and break down one of the institutional barriers in American life.”

Frerick also has the support of Rich Eychaner, who made history in Iowa in 1984 by being the first openly-gay candidate for Congress.

Run With Pride has four endorsed candidates nationwide including Frerick, Sharice Davids (KS-03), Matt Heinz (AZ-02) and Peter Volosin (VA-06). There are only seven members of Congress who publicly identify with being LGBTQ.

Six Democrats are competing for the chance to take on Republican incumbent David Young. Frerick lives in Winterset and is a former economist at the U.S. Treasury and a graduate of Grinnell University. The primary is on June 5.

by Pat Rynard
Posted 3/11/18