Former Des Moines School Board member Jonathan Narcisse has abandoned his plans to run against Governor Chet Culver in this June’s primary. Narcisse told The Des Moines Register Thursday that he’s traveled the state, and Iowans want an “independent voice,” someone who’s tied to neither the Democrats nor the Republicans.
Narcisse said he intends to run as an independent candidate for governor in the fall election. Narcisse held a news conference in late February and, back then, he told reporters he would submit his petition signatures this past Monday to place his name on the primary ballot as a Democratic challenger to Culver. Narcisse indicated he had handed the project of collecting petition signatures to his newly-hired campaign manager and volunteer coordinators around the state.
“There are just certain things that I trust my campaign leadership to handle,” Narcisse said on February 27, “and I don’t need to be in the minutia.” In a statement released to The Des Moines Register last night, Narcisse said as he traveled the state since then, he heard Iowans tell him “they do not want me to run as a partisan, but as an Iowan.”