Crawford County Supervisor Dave Muhlbauer is jumping into the race for 2026. Democratic governor nominee Rob Sand has selected Muhlbauer as his lieutenant governor, adding a fifth-generation western Iowa farmer and cattleman to the ticket ahead of what is expected to be one of the most competitive Iowa governor’s races in years.
Sand announced the pick Monday morning. Delegates to the Iowa Democratic Party’s state convention will consider the pick for nomination this Saturday.
“Farming’s in my blood. It’s my passion,” Muhlbauer said in his announcement in the Des Moines Register. “But so is being a political servant.”
Muhlbauer, 42, is a native of Manilla in Crawford County. He and his family farm near his father’s childhood home, and also raise cattle, hogs and horses. He is currently serving in his eighth year on the Crawford County Board of Supervisors.
Muhlbauer’s late father and grandfather were both elected to the board of supervisors and the state Legislature, making the family a multi-generational legacy of rural Democratic politics in one of Iowa’s reddest corners.
“We’ve been generations of rural Democrats, and we’ve had to win in rural areas that typically are red,” Muhlbauer said in the annoucment. “But to us, and Rob too, it’s not about one side versus the other. It’s like he says, you’re not redder or bluer, but better and truer.”
The pick gives Sand’s ticket a geographic anchor in western Iowa—territory that has trended sharply Republican in recent cycles—and agricultural credibility that Sand, the state auditor and a Decorah native, does not carry on his own.
On what’s driving voters, Muhlbauer didn’t mince words. “People are upset with the direction of the state,” he said. “They’re upset that their voices aren’t being heard. They feel like instead of representing the people — special interests and powerful insiders, they’re the ones being represented. And we’re here to change that.”
Most recently, Muhlbauer campaigned for US Senate in the 2022 cycle, running against Republican US Sen. Chuck Grassley.
“I grew up a Democrat,” he said in a campaign video. “My dad was a Democrat. My grandpa Louis was a Democrat. We are the old-school farming-labor Democrats. We’re for that middle class.”
He ended his campaign after the death of his 4-year-old nephew in a farm accident.
Sand and Muhlbauer will take on Republican governor nominee Zach Lahn this November. Lahn has not announced his lieutenant governor pick.
