Iowans feel echoes of Harkin energy in early days of Sand's campaign

Democratic gubernatorial candidate wants to decentralize state government so more jobs can be in rural Iowa

Democratic candidate for Iowa governor Rob Sand speaks to about 200 people in Oelwein, an event billed as a small roundtable on education that turned into a rally. (Photo By Douglas Burns)

OELWEIN, Iowa —

Rob Sand knows the outcome at the polls next year depends not just on how Iowans respond to him, the gubernatorial candidate atop his ticket, but Democrat voters themselves. Do voters see everyday Democrats down the street as kind, reasonable, approachable or hostile and impossibly entrenched?

In one of the first stops of Sand's fresh campaign for Terrace Hill, the Iowa auditor, and only elected statewide officeholder from the Democratic Party, urged the thousands of Democrats who will, in effect, represent him with other Iowans, to extend grace to Republicans and independents who may have voted for President Trump and other elected officials seen as responsible for poor economic policy or other failures.

"Raise your hand if you've ever been convinced you're wrong by being yelled at," Sand said in Oelwein, before a crowd of well over 200 people, most of them Democrats. "I've been asking that question for two years."

He asked Democrats to listen to other Iowans, not to scold them on their politics, to remember that votes are best judgments at the time, often hard choices between just two candidates they make not like — not oaths to the full battery of policies and positions and allies of a candidate.

"Unless you want to be judged on the basis of the worst thing Joe Biden has ever done then you shouldn't be judging people on the basis of the worst thing a candidate they ever voted for did," Sand said. "Give your neighbors some grace."

Several in attendance compared the energy with the Sand campaign stop at the Ampersand bar in the downtown Oelwein, a city of 6,000 in Fayette County, with events for former U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin.

"I would agree," said Barbara Ehlers, 70, of Stanley. "His message is so good, and it's so different from what we hear day after day after day after day."

Small town Iowa school board member Caitlin Reinking trusts Rob Sand on education issues, she said. (Photo By Douglas Burns)

Entering the room in Oelwein for Sand "made me think of the Obama event I went to in Iowa City — it was just so much excitement," said Caitlin Reinking, 38, a pharmacist and West Central Community School District board member who lives outside of Maynard. She has supported Sand "for years."

"I appreciate how honest he is," Reinking said. "Regardless of the topic, he's not trying to sugar-coat anything. He's not trying to sell anything. He's going to tell you, 'This is what's happening.'"

"You don't see that much anymore," she said.

Sand, the only formally announced Democrat in the 2026 race to succeed Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, stopped in Oelwein Wednesday as part of his launch week of campaigning. The primary elections for governor are more than a year away in June 2026.

Sand said he has managed a "tri-partisan" Auditor's Office, promoting Republican and independents as well as Democrats.

"I want to be a terrible politician because I think that's how you become a good public servant," Sand said.

He added, "I don't like to fit into people's boxes."

Asked by The Iowa Mercury after the event about rural economic development, Sand said he wants to decentralize state government, to allow more people to work outside the state capital and other government-job clusters in Iowa.

"The easiest thing to do, the easiest, is to let state employees live anywhere in the State of Iowa," Sand said. "The Republicans are all on this trip about forcing people to put their butts in the same cubicle. Where are these cubicles? They are all in Des Moines. They are all in Iowa City and Cedar Rapids and Ames, right. Some in Cedar Falls. But when you do that, you limit the ability of people who want to be in small towns, to live in small towns."

Of the thousands of state employees in Iowa many would be living in small towns if they are able to work remotely, he said.

"That literally is a Day 1 (policy) where we are having a positive impact for rural areas and small towns," Sand said.

Other priorities for the candidate: Sand said independent voters should be able to participate in primaries. He wants to see more public land in the State of Iowa, and is calling for accountability with funding of the vouchers/education savings accounts for private schools — an issue perhaps only superseded by the economy in importance to Iowa voters, Sand said.

Ehlers, a retired teacher from Stanley, and a native of Maynard, noted the Oelwein event was originally billed as an education forum.

"We need change, we definitely need change," Ehlers said. "Of course. I'm totally opposed to our tax dollars going private schools. I never thought it would ever happen. It's just not fair. I have a great love for private schools as well, but the choice is not there for everyone. Fayette County does not have a private school."

About The Iowa Mercury

(Douglas Burns, founder of The Iowa Mercury and a fourth-generation Iowa journalist from Carroll, is a member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. Read dozens of the most talented writers in Iowa in just one place. The Iowa Writers' Collaborative spans the full state. It’s one of the biggest things going in Iowa journalism and writing now — and you don’t want to miss. This collaborative is — as the outstanding Quad Cities journalist Ed Tibbetts says — YOUR SUNDAY IOWA newspaper. )