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In Iowa It's A Year Of Opportunity - A New Conversation With Rita Hart, The Hardworking Chair Of The Iowa Democratic Party

Iowa Dems have overperformed their 2024 results in six special elections by an average of 22 points

Simon Rosenberg

Feb 17

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Greetings all. Excited to share with you a new interview with Rita Hart, the Chair of the Iowa Democratic Party. This interview kicks off a series of check ins we’ll be doing with the candidates and state parties we are supporting this year. A video recording is above and a rough transcript below.

The Iowa Democratic Party is one of the five state parties in our Audacious Expansion Fund. Here’s how we’ve described this new initiative:

This new effort invests early resources in five state Democratic Parties - Alaska, Iowa, Florida, Maine, and Texas - that are expansion opportunities for us this year and in the future.
Simply, Democrats must learn how to win in more red states and red places if we are to retake Congress this year and build a better Electoral College map for us in the years ahead.
This fund will split each donation five ways and put resources into state parties that have not traditionally received significant national investment. Early, odd year investment will make a big difference as these challenging states gear up for critical races for Governor, Senate and the US House this year.
Note that high net worth donors can give up to $50,000 to this fund - $10,000 for each state party. The earlier we get them this money the more valuable it will be. Hopium is already raising for Jon Ossoff in Georgia and Roy Cooper in North Carolina. But we need to put more seats in play if we are to flip the Senate. The fund will help make things possible that would not be possible without early investment and prior to us having a primary winner we can all rally around.
This is a higher risk set of investments than we have traditionally made here at Hopium. But with Trump failing and struggling more is possible for us now, and these kinds of early investments can help turn a long shot race into a competitive one in parts of the country where we simply must learn how to win.

We first interviewed Chair Hart last summer. In this new discussion she gives us an update on a state where we have real opportunity this year - the incumbent Republican Governor, Kim Reynolds is the most unpopular in the country; Trump’s tariffs and mass deportation policies are doing enormous damage to Iowa’s farm economy; polling shows that both the Gubernatorial and Senate races are competitive in a +13 Trump state; 3 of the DCCC’s 44 targeted “districts in play” - districts we working to flip - are in Iowa (IA-1, IA-2, IA-3). With all these competitive races Iowa has become one of the most important battleground states in the county this cycle.

What should make all of us optimistic about our opportunity in Iowa this year is their remarkable performances in six state legislative special elections so far. In these six specials our candidates overperformed 2024 by an average of 22 points (22 points!!!!), winning four races, flipping two state Senate seats to end the GOP supermajority, and electing the first Latina to the state House and Black woman to the State Senate. It’s arguably the best performance of any state party in the country this year in state legislative special elections.

Your support of the Iowa Democratic Party (IDP) has helped us have a very encouraging cycle so far and is helping the IDP build out its most ambitious coordinated campaign and field operation in many, many years. Our early and significant investment - now almost $75,000 - has contributed to building out this ambitious operation, one that ensures that as some of our candidates emerge from June 2nd primaries they will be able to hit the ground running and not have to start from scratch.

You can contribute to our Audacious Expansion Fund here, or if you prefer, consider contributing directly to Rita Hart and the IDP here.

Iowa is one of those states we must target to have a shot at flipping the Senate this year. If we hold on to GA (Ossoff), MI, MN, and NH we start at 47 Senate seats. If we flip ME and NC (Cooper) we get to 49. To get to 51 we will need to win 2 of Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Ohio, Texas. Between our Audacious Expansion Fund and our Senate endorsements Hopium is currently raising and supporting Democratic efforts in all 7 of these expansion states - Alaska, Iowa, Florida, Maine, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas.

Our Senate map this year is a hard one, but not an impossible one; and it only becomes possible through these early, deeply strategic investments in state parties and candidates.

Here’s our current field in these critical races in Iowa:

Governor - Rob Sand, current Auditor, the only statewide elected Democrat, running competitive in current polling
US Senate - Two Dems are fighting it out for the nomination - Zach Wahls – State Senator from Coralville and Josh Turek – State Representative from Council Bluffs
IA-2 and IA-3 have competitive multi-candidate Democratic primaries

In IA-1 Hopium has endorsed a great candidate, Christina Bohannan, who only lost this seat by 800 votes in what was a very tough year in Iowa in 2024. Bohannan is part of our "Winning The House” effort, and I am proud to say that we’ve already raised over $40,000 for this critical must win race. If you want to do a deep dive on Iowa you can also watch my recent conversation with Christina here. As you will see she is a terrific candidate, and can win this tough district in Southeastern Iowa in a far better year with a much stronger top of the ticket and much more ambitious and capable state party pulling for her every step of the way.

Watch this wonderful interview with a terrific leader of a state party in one of most important battleground states this cycle, and learn how this money we are raising for the state parties is being put to use.

Keep working hard all and thanks for all that you do for your country, each and every day - Simon

Biography - Iowa Democratic Party Chair Rita Hart

Hart was born in 1956 in Charles City, Iowa. She earned an Associate of Arts degree from North Iowa Area Community College, a bachelor’s degree from the University of Northern Iowa and a master’s degree in educational administration from the University of Iowa. She worked as a middle school and high school English teacher for more than 20 years.

Hart served in the Iowa State Senate from 2013-2019. She was the 2018 Democratic nominee for Iowa's lieutenant governor and the 2020 Democratic nominee for the U.S. House for Iowa's 2nd congressional district.

In January 2023, Hart was elected chair of the Iowa Democratic Party.

Iowa Democratic Party Chair wants to empower county parties | Iowa Public Radio

Transcript - Simon Rosenberg and Iowa Democratic Party Chair Rita Hart

Simon Rosenberg:
Welcome, everyone. Simon Rosenberg, Hopium Chronicles, back with another great event. Joining me today is the Iowa Democratic Party chairwoman, Rita Hart. Welcome, Senator. Thank you for coming today.

Chair Rita Hart:
Yeah, Simon, thank you so much. Really appreciate your being able to get on here and talk to folks and appreciate all the support that you've given.

Simon Rosenberg:
Well, you're part of what we call our Audacious Expansion Fund, which is this idea that this was going to be a year of opportunity for us, but in order to realize that opportunity, we needed to invest to make things that were possible happen. And so we've raised now over $350,000 for five state parties, including yours. I'm really proud of the community's response to this. And, you know, Iowa really is turning out to be both a success story for us this cycle so far and a central battleground for us. So perhaps for those who don't know the lay of the land, maybe you can just start by giving us the landscape in 2026.

Chair Rita Hart:
Absolutely, Simon. So, yeah, I appreciate that notion that this is an investment because the reality is that, you know, nothing worthwhile comes about without hard work. And we've been hard at work at this project here in Iowa — of turning things around from being very Republican in the last couple cycles to being able to elect some Democrats this fall. And so we have gone through several years now where we have worked hard to bring the Democratic Party here in Iowa to be more stable, to be more strong. Your help has just solidified that for us. But the reality is that we've had some great special elections over the last year, and that has proven that we can win elections anywhere in this state. If we put up candidates who people can have faith in, that have the right background, as in they have proven by the work that they've done that they are in this for the right reasons, that they understand the challenges that people face. They're talking about the issues that really matter to folks. And folks of all stripes, therefore, have confidence and are able to vote for them. And so those are the candidates we've been recruiting.

Those are the candidates that have been winning these special elections. And now here we are in 2026 looking towards November and where we have for the first time since 1968 an open governor's race and an open U.S. Senate seat with great candidates in both of those election cycles. Our primary is coming up here June 2nd. So we'll see what happens there. We also have four congressional races. And three of those have already been targeted. So we have an opportunity to flip some seats there that could actually flip the majority in the U.S. House. And the same is true for the U.S. Senate. And so we've been working hard to get our coordinated campaign up and running. That's where we're at right now, where we've got enough investment there…it's been, I think, 2012 since the coordinated campaign has been organized to this point at this juncture. And so we know that when the primary is over, we'll be able to hit the ground running. And again, we've got exciting candidates who have been doing a great job of getting across the state and talking about the issues that really matter to folks. So we're in great position here.

Simon Rosenberg:
Yeah. I want to drill down on this idea, for those who don't know how the party works, that you know, parties have this unique function in our system. Because it's the only entity in our broad family that gets up every day trying to elect Democrats and only Democrats. But also you have this responsibility of the coordinated campaign. And in an election like this, where you have so many races, coordinating the campaign is really going to matter this time because it brings together the gubernatorial candidate, the Senate candidate, the congressional candidates, your state legislative races in a single table that helps everyone make sure that they're working together as opposed to apart. And so talk a little bit about, you know, how that's going so far and why in this cycle in particular, it's so important.

Chair Rita Hart:
Well, it is so important because we recognize that the only way we're gonna get this done is to operate like a team. And I would tell you…I've run as a state Senator twice, I ran for Lieutenant Governor, I ran for Congress, and I have not always been pleased with the fact that we call it a coordinated campaign…it has not been very coordinated. And there's reasons for that. We've worked really hard to break down the barriers to the coordination. And so, I am really tickled that we've got our coordinated campaign director hired on board. We have a senior staffer. We've got an organizing director hired. Not only is it important that we get those pieces of the puzzle together so that once we get past the primary and we know whose names are going to be on the ballot, that we work to coordinate all of those efforts….. but we also have to combine that with the efforts of the volunteers on the ground.

And I'm a big believer that the majority of the work that we do here in Iowa rests on the work that we do at the doors with the county parties, with the volunteers to have the kinds of conversations with folks that make a difference. And so we're working really hard, and we're going to have this coordinated effort that says we're understanding that if we're going to win these elections, it's because we're having important conversations at the doors with the people who are hungry for change, right? Because that's the situation here in Iowa. We know that people understand that things are not going well, that the state is not going in the right direction. We're 49th in economic growth in comparison to the rest of the country. We are 48th in personal income growth. Our education system has slipped from number two or number five or whatever you want to put it, but down to the mid twenties. There's a real problem with funding with our public education system. We've got a farm crisis that is brewing and getting worse every day. There's a lot of reasons. We have the number one cancer rate in the country with not a lot of effort going into figuring out what should be done about that. And at the same time, our state legislature is operating with a deficit budget.

So there's a lot of reasons why things are not going in the right direction for Iowans, but we have to have those conversations at the doors and talk about the solutions that Democrats provide. And again, that's why I'm thrilled that we have the quality of candidates that we have, with the kind of level of experience that they have, and the fact that they are just people who care about this state and in which direction it should be going.

Simon Rosenberg:
And to put an exclamation point on that — the investment that we've made in you is allowing you to go build this coordinated campaign so that when the primaries end in June, when you have candidates, everything is ready for them to go. And in previous years, without the investment from the national party, which is unprecedented into the state parties, and you're a red state, so you get that little extra bonus, you know, from the DNC each month and from our community giving, you know, supporting you, what's gonna be on the other end in June is going to be much more than would normally be in place. And that's why this idea that Ken Martin and Jane Kleeb and the new team has about these early investments in state parties can be transformative, particularly in states that have later primaries. And you're sort of in the middle on the late primary. There are some that even go into July and August. But in these kind of later primaries, these kinds of early investments, the state parties can make the difference between us winning and losing in the fall.

And so I just want to make sure for everyone who's watching who has donated or will consider donating, this is still some of the most important money that we can be investing anywhere in the country right now in a state where we have tremendous opportunity this time. In part because…can you talk a little bit about…I saw polling showing that your governor is the most unpopular governor in the country, as another sort of backdrop to this perception of failure and drift that's happening in Iowa.

Chair Rita Hart:
So again, yeah, she has the record now for a governor who has been the most unpopular governor in the country for the longest. And again, there's reasons for that, right? The many unpopular things that she has done as governor with education, with healthcare, the lack of progress on why we have such high cancer rates, the water quality issue. I mean, there's just so many things that are not going in the right direction. And so it's no surprise that she is a very unpopular governor in comparison to how other states feel about their governors, right. And, I would add Simon that I think people need to understand that this is huge to change, where the leadership is now and have these conversations about what would make it better. And so that's why it's really important that we do our job as a state party to get that word out, to get people to understand just what's at stake and how it could be different.

And I know that people get very enamored with particular candidates, and that's why I'm thrilled that we have the quality of candidates that we have. Because it comes down to what kind of people are you electing and will they have their priorities straight? And I'm thrilled at the quality of the candidates that we have. But the state party is the entity that makes that happen. One of the reasons why I said yes to this job…I know it's a surprise, but not everybody wants to be the state party chair. In our system, it is a very hard job. It is. So, you know, people weren't standing in line. But one of the reasons why I said yes to this job is because when I ran for Congress, many of you will remember that that came down to a six point difference out of four hundred thousand votes. And we were unable, even though we knew we had the votes, if we could have gotten the complete recount, we could have proved that we had the votes. But we did not have the state party structure that we should have had to do the things that could have really made a difference. So I am bound and determined that is not gonna happen. There's some things that we should have done so that we would have had a bigger birth going into that election. And there's things that we could have done after. So I am bound and determined that we're gonna have the kind of state party that has the organizational structure that is not going to let down any candidate because candidates run great campaigns.

It's hard to run for office, especially these days, right? And so when you put your lifeblood into a race and you do everything you can to win it, and you're the kind of candidate that deserves to be elected, and then things don't go your way because we don't have the organizational structure underneath you to get through it. That's a real problem. So we're bound and determined not to let that happen. We've had some really close races here in Iowa over the last few cycles. We've got to bring people across the finish line this time. And again, that is why your investment in this state and your listeners' willingness to understand how important this is really is going to make a difference.

Simon Rosenberg:
Well, and we've also endorsed Christina Bohannan again…I think we're at about forty five thousand dollars just in the last six weeks or so for her. We were very involved in that race last time. And she's a terrific candidate to your point about great candidates. She's a great candidate and proud to support her again.

Let's talk about one other thing. You know, we had an interesting thing happen in Washington this week, which is that there was a rebellion in the House against Trump on the tariffs. And we had already seen the US Senate vote to roll back almost all of Trump's global tariffs last year. The Republican controlled Senate bucked their leader and voted with the Democrats to roll back and rescind these tariffs. This week in the House, we saw Canadian tariffs were voted on, the Congress, the House voted to rescind the Canadian tariffs by 219 to 211. It was an incredible rebuke of the president on his signature economic policy. Obviously these tariffs have done enormous damage to small businesses and consumers all across the country, but it's had a particular impact in the ag economy. And I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that and what's the state of play, you know, in this conversation around tariffs and the ag economy in Iowa.

Chair Rita Hart:
Yeah, sure. So again, this is a real disappointment that our four Republican congressional representatives did not stick up for Iowa, did not stick up for the farm economy here in the state of Iowa, which is so important to our overall economy. By not understanding just how damaging this is to our farmers, and it's really frustrating, I think, because it was so predictable. We knew this last time in Trump's first election cycle, right, when he started talking tariffs. Again, I stood on the Senate floor and read a letter that I wrote to President Trump that was very respectful. It just simply said, this economy here in the state of Iowa depends on agriculture. And history tells us that when you pass these kinds of tariffs, I mean, we all understand that tariffs are a tool just like any other, but when it is applied like he was suggesting and like he has now done, that is done on the backs of Iowa farmers and that trickles out into the rest of the economy. And so that's what we're facing now, right? It has affected our prices at the same time when our inputs are super high, and therefore, I think the latest projection was that farm income is gonna be down by at least 26%, if not more. And so that is devastating, not only to our farmers, but to the entire economy. And that's why it's so disappointing that these representatives did not stick up for Iowa and voted against our best interest.

Simon Rosenberg:
It is an important point that as we've been celebrating this victory and to have seen this rebuke of the president, the overwhelming majority of battleground Republicans in the House and in the Senate have voted for the tariffs and higher prices. And so this is why this vote was so meaningful. One, it ended up being a powerful rebuke. But we also now have four House members on the record for higher prices, a devastating attack on the farm economy, which is going to be something that you're going to be able to use every day from now on. And so this vote this week on the tariffs was really consequential for the election, I believe, both in terms of weakening the sense that he's losing his grip on the party and that he's weakening, which is very important for us as a country, but also because he made a lot of Republicans take a ridiculous vote. Mike Johnson had insulated your four Republicans from having to take a direct tariff vote. That regime that he put in place collapsed this week. And now we have all over the country you know, people who, members of Congress, as you pointed out, [who] walked away and betrayed their communities for fealty to Trump. And this is an incredible bludgeon that we're going to be able to have against them because it is about betrayal at the core of it all.

Chair Rita Hart:
And the other thing that we don't talk about much is what would it be like if we had different leadership, right? What if we had leadership that actually worked with our best trade partner, right? Canada is our best trade partner. We, you know, farmers, we buy, I don't know, ninety some percent of our fertilizer comes from Canada. That is a direct bottom line for us, right, so what if we had leadership that instead of being a bully and using a stick, actually worked in cooperation and worked with and built up our straight trade partners instead of putting us at odds with the folks that we depend on and that we could actually have better relationships with?

Simon Rosenberg:
Yes, well, that would be nice. And again, you know, I think people need to know what they're voting for. They, you know, they know they kind of naturally go after what they're voting against, but they need to know what they could be voting for. And that's really important. It's a great way to end. And listen, thank you, Chairwoman Hart. I mean, I did my time in Iowa. I was part of the Iowa caucus many, many years ago…..in Washington for the political operative class, spending time in Iowa is a badge of honor. The old caucuses, which are not there anymore in the way they were, for at least at the national level, was an extraordinary experience in terms of being so close to people and having very direct interaction in this kind of super grassrootsy kind of way of picking our leaders. But the second thing is that for many of us who grew up on the coast, being able to spend time in Iowa was a really important formative thing for me as a young guy in terms of the incredible generosity of spirit that I encountered in Iowa, the sort of the goodness of the people of Iowa. It was a great experience for me and it was really sort of formative. So when I say I did my time, I did my time in a way that made me stronger and better, and a better American in many ways, right? Because I got outside of the New Yorker poster bubble that I’ve lived in most of my adult life. But I found the people of Iowa to have been just, you know, I made a lot of friends and we had a great time there. So I look back [and] whenever I get to connect with anybody from Iowa, I have a deeply warm feeling and a lot of gratitude for the time that I was able to spend there.

Chair Rita Hart:
You know, I think Iowa takes great pride in being genuine, right? Being down to earth, being common sense, and being kind. You know, we like to be neighbors to everyone.

And it's fun for me, you know, hearing you talk about your experience, I start thinking about some of the staffers who come through this state, right? And how so many of them come here for a short period of time, but then they return, they return, and sometimes they marry Iowans, and they stay here forever, right? You know, that's, I guess, what I think. We've got to get back as far as the voter is concerned, right? That's what the voter is looking for, too. Authenticity, genuineness. They want somebody that they can trust, that they can like, that they can feel comfortable with for who they are putting in office. And that comes from the work that those staffers do. That comes from the work that the volunteers do. That comes from the work that I do to lead this party in a way that says we're trying to make the country a better place. We're trying to make this state a better place. We're trying to make this country a better place. And we can do it if we do it together. If we have these conversations, if we work hard, if we reach out to each other, that's what it's all about. And then we get all these extra benefits along the way as well.

Simon Rosenberg:
Amen to that. Listen, it's great to be part of your team this cycle. Congratulations on all the successes you've had in these special elections, which have been amazing. It is a precursor and a harbinger, we hope, of the success you're going to have in November. And we just have to keep working hard. And folks, we've got more money to raise here. So if you enjoyed this interview today, please consider giving to the Audacious Expansion Fund, as we call it, help us get over the line in Iowa and build that infrastructure the Chairwoman talked about that's so necessary to make a difference in these very close races, which many of these may be in November. This is a year of special opportunity there. And so let's seize it together and good luck and stay in touch. Let us know any kind of new developments, please let us know because we'll keep people informed.

Chair Rita Hart:
Okay, we'll keep you posted. And thanks again so much. It was a great pleasure.

Simon Rosenberg:
Okay, thanks everybody. Listen, if you like this interview, please hit like, subscribe to Hopium if you're new to us for interviews like this, share this with everybody you've met, and please consider helping being part of our Audacious Expansion Fund. It's taking five states, investing in them, five states that we need, where we have opportunity this cycle, where if we invest early and give the resources to the state parties, we can do remarkable things, but only if we invest early and give them the tools they need to do what they need to do. So thanks everybody. Take care.

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