The first forum featuring the five Republican candidates running in Iowa’s Fourth Congressional District was held last night in Treynor. The Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition hosted the event and will run get-out-the-vote efforts next fall for Iowa Republican candidates in the General Election.
Douglas Jensen, a veteran of the Air Force from Silver City, told the crowd he’s running because Washington is broken. “Congress is the most dysfunctional branch of government. It can’t do it’s constitutional job. It can’t pass a budget. It can’t even keep the government open,” Jensen said. “It takes strong leadership to fix a problem like that.”
Candidate Ryan Rhodes, the founder of the Iowa Tea Party who recently stepped down as CEO of Parler — a social media platform popular with conservatives, responded. “I’m glad the government is shutdown right now,” Rhodes said, “and I’m glad we actually have a congress that is finally standing against an extra $1.3 trillion of communist ObamaCare, period.”
Candidate Christian Schlaefer is a farmer and software engineer from Lakota who told the crowd President Trump has done “an amazing job,” but the D.C. swamp is “far deeper and more dangerous” that anyone had imagined. “If we allow Democrats, progressives or woke ideology individuals to take over this country again, they will turn against us with a revenge for the great things that we’ve been able to accomplish,” Schlaefer said.
Siouxland Chamber of Commerce President Chris McGowan said members of congress from both parties have shown they cannot say no to more spending. “Our federal debt — now at $38 trillion,” McGowan said. “…The surest and fastest way to arrest that spending is to force congress to remain disciplined and to advocate for…a balanced budget amendment.”
Matt Windschitl of Missouri Valley, the only one of the candidates who’s won elected office before, has been one of the GOP leaders in the Iowa House for the past 16 years. “The same principles that we’ve applied here in Iowa that I’ve been a part of need to be what is applied in Washington, D.C.,” Windschitl said. “Yes, that means we’re going to have to tighten the belt…Yes, that means we’re going to have to cut back on the reckless spending.”
Republican Randy Feenstra, who currently represents the fourth congressional district, formally kicked off his campaign for governor today. Three Democrats have been campaigning in the district.
(Sheila Brummer, Iowa Public Radio, contributed to this story.)