A 32-year-old Democrat won today’s “special election” in Cedar Rapids for a seat in the Iowa House.
Fewer than 10 percent of the voters in the House district on the south side of Cedar Rapids cast a ballot. But of those who did, 78 percent voted for the Democratic candidate. Kirsten Running-Marquardt, daughter of former state Representative Rich Running of Cedar Rapids, was the landslide winner.
Her Republican rival was Josh Thurson, a 27-year-old Teamsters union member who works at the Cargill plant in Cedar Rapids. The Republican won just 22 percent of the vote in the district, which has a heavy Democratic voter registration edge.
Running-Marquardt will replace former State Representative Dick Taylor, a Democrat who resigned earlier this fall. Taylor’s son died of a heart attack this summer and Taylor says he is now the sole caregiver for his wife, who is ill.