Gov. Kim Reynolds is turning her actions during Iowa’s deadly pandemic into a moneymaker for her reelection campaign.
Earlier today, Reynolds’ political account tweeted out a fundraising link with a video of her appearance on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show where she promoted her rollback of many of Iowa’s COVID safety measures.
In it, the governor framed her decision to end the mask mandate and social distancing rules for bars and restaurants in a much different manner than she has when speaking to the Iowa public. Instead of ending the safety measures because Iowa’s COVID hospitalization rate fallen, Reynolds pitches her actions as fighting the “radicals on the Left.”
Since Reynolds’ surprise move that was announced the Friday night before the Super Bowl, her team has carefully messaged the decision to draw political benefit from it. After receiving withering criticism in Iowa and nationally for greatly loosening health measures while the state struggled to distribute the vaccine, Reynolds went to Fox News for a supportive, easy interview.
“I didn’t pursue aggressive lockdown strategies. Instead, I put my faith in Iowans and Iowa businesses. We kept over 80% of our economy open, ” Reynolds told Hannity.
Reynolds’ conservative base in the state largely agrees with her hands-off approach to the virus, even as over 5,000 Iowans have lost their lives to it. And her top donors — especially those who run meatpacking plants — have particularly appreciated her efforts to keep businesses open at all costs, even if it’s come at the expense of workers’ health and lives.
Iowa can expect to see Reynolds’ COVID management — or her imagined version of it, at least — feature as a key point in her reelection campaign for 2022. And the months ahead will likely see more pandemic decisions from the governor based not off of public health, but how it could play among her political base in Iowa.
by Pat Rynard
Posted 2/11/21
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2 Comments on "Reynolds Fundraises Off Her COVID Safety Rollback"
I just read a story to the effect that Kristi Noem, Gov of South Dakota, told the SD Legislature how wonderful the SD economy is because of her keep-the-state-wide-open covid policies. The story added that South Dakota has the highest covid death rate per capita in the Midwest. But it seems clear that Noem figures her kind of voter won’t care. Maybe Reynolds figures the same, and maybe she’s right.
Kim Reynolds is a joke. She told Iowans she was doing us a favor because we always do the right thing. That’s garbage. Then on National tv she tries to blame the “radical left” for HER decision to stop measures of protection. She’s just looking fir a vase to run in 22. She has done a poor job of of Covid response. The heat packing plants she kept open were teaming with Covid and killing people faster than anywhere. The long term care facilities people died faster than she could count. They probably lost half their residents in all. And we are last in vaccines and distribution. We get 50 doses a day and you. Ever know where they will be. Public health or a pharmacy and which one. And by the time you do figure it out they are gone. She closed testing sites to please 45 so our counting rather than frivolous raises our county put our CARES MONEY into opening our own testing site. We are a small county with an older population but because of shortage of testing sites people were driving here from all over the state. Now only the large cities are getting the biggest share of vaccine while our older population in the small counties can’t get it. Not to mention many can’t use a computer don’t have one or no access and that’s the only way they’ve had to even try to get a vaccine. Kim Reynolds you are a fail at Covid 19 and protecting or even caring about Iowans. And we will remember in 22. Using this as a means fur re-election is obscene.