Who Will Be Iowa’s Next Governor?
In April 2025, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds made a surprise announcement that she would not run for reelection. This means that for the first time since 2006, the Iowa governor’s race will not have an incumbent running (this is referred to as an “open” race). In the last presidential election, Donald Trump won 56 percent of the vote there last year. Reynolds, the current governor, is also a Republican. Currently, there are about 200,000 more active Republican voters in the state than Democrats. But Iowa Democrats believe that this race provides an opportunity to possibly flip the open seat. Here, Election Central takes a closer look at the candidates.
The Republican Candidate, Randy Feenstra
Feenstra confirmed his candidacy in October 2025. He was a supporter of President Trump’s policies, especially his tax and spending cuts bill, which Feenstra helped write. He currently represents Iowa’s 4th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he is serving his third term.
By the time Feenstra announced his candidacy, he had already amassed several million dollars in fundraising, including half a million dollars in paid advertisements. He has stated that he is committed to fiscal responsibility, border security, farmers, ranchers, the biofuel industry, and the anti-abortion movement. He spent time during his childhood working on farms and uses this experience to reflect the concerns of the state’s rural voters. Feenstra and his wife of 32 years, Lynette, raised four children in Hull, Iowa, the town where they both grew up.
Feenstra has said that if he is elected governor, he has four goals:
- to make Iowa the friendliest state for business and agriculture
- to improve education
- to make it possible for young people to build their future in Iowa, and
- to make high-quality healthcare affordable and accessible.
The Democratic Candidate, Rob Sand
Rob Sand announced his race for governor in May 2025. As Iowa’s state auditor, Sand is currently the only Democrat who holds statewide office. He won his seat in 2018 by just 4 percent. In 2022, Sand won reelection by less than 3,000 votes. When he beat the Republican incumbent in 2018, he became the first Democrat to hold the state auditor’s seat since the 1960s.
To appeal to Republican voters, Sand likes to also discuss his experiences growing up in a small town in rural Iowa, hunting and fishing. As auditor, Sand has committed to weeding out waste and fraud. Since taking office in 2018, he has discovered more than $29 million in misspent funds.
He has stated that he believes in working with people from both political parties and believes in standing up for what’s right even when it’s not popular. This approach seems to be working; by the time his opponent entered the race in October 2025, Sand had already raised about $10 million for his campaign.
Sand states that if he is elected governor, he will:
- lower costs for Iowans
- continue fighting corruption
- create more economic opportunities across the state, and
- restore public trust in the government.
Show What You Know Choose one of the two candidates for the Iowa Governor’s race and create a poster for their campaign. Make sure to include a little bit about who they are and what they have promised to do for Iowans if elected next year.
