Author: Pat Rynard

Iowa politics can be fun when you have a long memory. Take today, for instance. Kim Reynolds announced Adam Gregg as her “acting” lt. governor (due to Attorney General Tom Miller’s ruling, he will be essentially a staff role for the time being). In doing so, Reynolds effectively announced the Republican ticket for 2018. As such, they did what campaigns often do: set up websites and campaign committees and twitter accounts and Facebook pages. Reynolds’ new gubernatorial campaign website is GovernorReynolds.com, which as I noted earlier today, might confuse some people as to what exactly is Reynolds’ political side and which […]

Kim Reynolds was sworn in as Iowa’s 43rd governor yesterday, but it certainly didn’t take her long to kick off her reelection campaign. On the same day that she laid out her policy agenda for the state, her staff amended her former lt. governor campaign committee to a full gubernatorial one named “Kim Reynolds for Iowa.” She already has at least a million dollars in that from fundraising last year. On a more substantive front, Reynolds launched a campaign website and also unveiled a five-minute video introducing herself to Iowa voters. It plays out like an introductory campaign video you’d release when […]

While Iowa’s Democratic leaders congratulated Kim Reynolds on her swearing in as Iowa’s newest governor, they also offered up deeply skeptical and critical concerns. Only a handful of well-known Democrats attended Reynolds’ ceremony, including legislative leaders Rob Hogg and Mark Smith, as well as Senators Nate Boulton and Rita Hart. Boulton, who hopes to take on Reynolds as the Democratic nominee in 2018, did a full day of counter-messaging around the event. After leaving the Capitol, Boulton travelled to Cedar Rapids to hold a press conference, attracting most of the Eastern Iowa media contingent. “Governor Reynolds campaigned on the promise of […]

Iowa has a new governor. Kim Reynolds was officially sworn in this morning at a large ceremony in the rotunda of the Capitol, with many of the state’s top officials, Republican legislators and major conservative activists in attendance. Terry Branstad resigned the office and was immediately installed as America’s next ambassador to China. All those things have been in the work for months now, but the big question was what vision Reynolds would lay out for her administration. Would she set a separate path from Branstad or stay the course in both substance and style? Would she lay out key, […]

Speaking in a legislative conference room at the Statehouse just down the hallway from the office he hopes to soon occupy, Todd Prichard told supporters and the media he would campaign for “forgotten Iowans” as he launched his official gubernatorial bid. He kicked off his announcement tour Tuesday morning in a Charles City coffee shop packed with dozens of local backers. He later held press conferences in Cedar Rapids and Des Moines, and has ten more events across the state planned for over the next week (see full list below). “For years we have watched as the Branstad and Reynolds […]

The Democratic gubernatorial primary campaign kicked off in Indianola, Iowa this past week when six of the candidates made their pitch to Democrats at Summerset Winery. Well, that’s what Representative Scott Ourth, who hosted them at his fundraiser, wanted his event to be known as, anyway. It was a nice evening put on by Ourth, so let’s just go ahead and say that it all began there. Before a crowd of about 100 Warren County Democrats, the gubernatorial hopefuls tested out their early stump speeches. In attendance were John Norris, Nate Boulton, Andy Mcguire, Todd Prichard, Rich Leopold and Jonathan […]