The Bulwark: “Sand’s Got a Good Thing Going”

“It all adds up to a compelling message, and one Sand has been pounding the pavement to make for years.”

DES MOINES, IA – The Bulwark’s Andrew Egger joined nominee for governor Rob Sand on the road for his annual 100 Town Hall Tour. Egger spoke with Rob and Iowa voters across the state about his campaign as the race continues to heat up, with all major political analysts now calling it a “Toss-Up.” As Egger reports, Rob’s message of fixing a broken political system, bringing people together, and common-sense solutions for Iowa’s biggest problems is resonating with voters of all political backgrounds across the state.

Read more from The Bulwark HERE, or key quotes below:

The Bulwark: Iowa’s Rob Sand Tries a Different Kind of Populism

• As auditor, Sand is currently the only Democratic statewide officeholder in Iowa. And at a time when so much of the country’s populist energy is concentrating on the political fringes, he’s building momentum as a different kind of populist—a technocratic, centrist, competence-obsessed insurgent.

• Part of the secret to Sand’s appeal is the harmony between his own biography and his political pitch. The youthful-looking 43-year-old came up in the Iowa government as a public corruption prosecutor, serving for seven years in the attorney general’s office. He leveraged that experience into two successful runs for state auditor on a clean-up-the-books platform, with a laser focus on accountability.

• In his speeches, Sand flogs a host of accountability-focused reforms he’d like to achieve that are credibly populist—starting with term limits, age limits, and cognitive tests for elected officials. He wants to ban state officials from trading stocks, strengthen whistleblower protections, and increase criminal penalties for supposed public servants who embezzle or defraud.

• It all adds up to a compelling message, and one Sand has been pounding the pavement to make for years. He’s been a relentless tourer of the state throughout his political career; when I caught up with him last weekend in Clark and Decatur Counties on the Missouri border, I spoke with plenty of voters who’d been following Sand since he first came to their town years before.

• “As the auditor, [Sand] didn’t just target the opposing party,” Swanson said. “He was fair, he was balanced. And also, I really enjoy his food reviews when he travels the state.”

• Swanson’s mother, Valorie Long, chimed in in agreement: “And if you watch, his viewpoints are not Democrat, or Republican, or independent. It’s what will work, and how can it be accomplished.”