The Dispatch: Rob Sand’s Strategy: “Meet Voters Where They are and on Their Terms, in Every County, Over, and Over, and Over Again.”

The Dispatch: “…For now, however, Sand is well positioned to pick the Republican Party’s 20-year lock on the Iowa governor’s mansion.”

DES MOINES, IA – The Dispatch’s David Drucker joined Rob Sand on the road for several stops of his annual 100 Town Hall Tour, getting a front-row seat to see how Rob is winning over voters across the state and across party lines. Like Jennifer Wippert, for example: a registered Republican in Rock Rapids, who noted how Rob “hasn’t focused on the culture war aspect of things,” and that he’s “focused on what people really care about: Everything’s really expensive. Where are our tax dollars going? You know, what about our water quality? Those are things he’s been focusing on. I think that really sets him apart and maybe lets him kind of break into this really red area.”

Read more from The Dispatch below:

The Dispatch: Rob Sand Wants to Show a Democrat Can Win in Iowa

Rob Sand looks like a Democrat that party strategists might have designed in a political laboratory to win over the Republicans who have come to dominate this red state in the populist era defined by President Donald Trump.
But Sand is running on cooperation, not confrontation, with Iowa’s GOP-controlled Legislature. He vows that “every culture war bill” would be met with his veto pen, whether pushed by Democrats or Republicans; he has repeatedly reaffirmed his opposition to transgender girls participating in female sports (although he has described the GOP’s approach to this issue as bigoted); and he is proposing to disperse government regulatory power and decision-making from Des Moines to the state’s 99 counties and their communities.
“For now, however, Sand is well positioned to pick the Republican Party’s 20-year lock on the Iowa governor’s mansion.
In June, the Sand campaign unveiled a list of 100 registered Republicans, nicknamed “Rob-Publicans,” publicly backing the Democratic nominee and featured one of them in his latest advertisements. As of last week, more than 2,400 registered Republicans and 6,000-plus independent voters had donated, Team Sand informed The Dispatch.
It’s evidence of broad support—or openness, at least—that has some Democratic voters more optimistic than usual that Sand can return the party to power in the state capital. Many Iowa Democrats also believe Sand offers the party a better blueprint for success, generally, than the progressives who have surged in congressional and gubernatorial primaries across the country.
Sand’s strategy for overcoming these myriad political challenges: Meet voters where they are and on their terms, in every county, over, and over, and over again.
Sand was personable and relaxed on the stump during the half-dozen town hall meetings across the northwest and north-central regions of his state. He also was quite disciplined, the mark of a skilled campaigner.
The agenda he pitched to voters was roughly the same—focused largely on non-controversial issues that may spark disagreement among committed partisans but tend to elicit approval from less politically minded rank-and-file voters.
Sand also wants to increase taxpayer funding for cancer research and up the Medicaid reimbursement rates for healthcare providers to halt an exodus to neighboring states that pay more—a particularly acute problem in rural counties.
On public education: Sand wants to exclude wealthy Iowans from a program that allows parents to use taxpayer vouchers to pay for private school. And he wants private schools that accept vouchers to be more transparent with the state about how that taxpayer money is being spent.
On data centers: Sand is proposing a balanced approach that would permit development of the massive facilities deemed beneficial to economic growth but end tax breaks and enact consumer and environmental protections.
Regarding environmental policy specifically, Sand tends to focus on farm-friendly proposals, like improving water quality.