Adam Steen, one of the five Republicans running for governor, says his campaign is focusing on likely voters who have not yet decided how they’ll vote in Tuesday’s Primary.
“There’s a ton of apathy. I think we’ll probably see it in the voter turnout in the Primary and then job number one is to get more enthusiasm and excitment out there in the General (Election),” Steen said. “…There’s still some that don’t realize Governor Reynolds isn’t running again.”
Steen has begun running campaign ads on television and, in the final two weeks of the campaign, is hosting 37 events around the state. “I go home every night…knowing I’ve kept my integrity. I didn’t bend my morals. I didn’t compromise my values and I am absolutely piece. We’ve done everything we’ve known how to do. We’re leaving it all on the field,” Steen said. “That’s how I roll and I’m not looking back.”
After a short stint as a professional baseball player, Steen worked in the busines world, then become director of the Iowa Department of Administrative Services for five years. “You’re looking at somebody who is ready to go,” Steen told a crowd at a stop in Ankeny this week. “Operationally, I oversaw some of the largest projects this state has ever tried to accomplish. Just one of them is alignment. We took 37 agencies, we took it down to 16. We created efficiencies. We created money savings and I’m telling you right now, I wrote a list of other efficiencies.”
Steen is praising the plan Governor Reynolds recently signed that limits most property tax growth in cities and counties to 2% a year, but Steen said he’d go farther. “We can cap things, but we’ve got to talk about driving taxes lower by looking at how we’re spending money,” Steen said.
Steen said there’s still plenty of waste to cut in government budgets at the local and state level, particularly in the contracts for purchasing services and supplies.