September 14th, 2026 - Iowa City - Town Hall Tour transcript

and the granddaughter of farmers and small business owners. The daughter of a public servant in Johnson County, my mom. Um, >> okay, it's working college. as well as sister is my city school public educators as well [applause] and I also school district and now I know that Iowa is built for better and we want to get back to an IO that's for all of us for young and old we decided last by clones and Hawkeyes, Regles and Trojans, Democrats and Republicans, >> but we know that we only have 50 days left until this election.

And we're counting all of you to come out, volunteer, knock doors, talk to your neighbors, put a sign in your yard, and get the word out about because it's going to be all of you that make the difference in this election. Join we can create the Iowa that we all know is possible and that starts with getting some new leadership and employ. So please help me welcoming the recycle. Those are all here tonight. Your state auditor, a fulltime Ireland, a proud So, don't clap too long.

I appreciate you all coming here tonight. Thanks for joining us. Uh, I'm going to get used to where I need to hold this microphone. It's pretty loud. How's this? >> Okay, there. Doesn't have to be as close as you. I want to start with something that I think is common sense. Most people know it, but you don't really hear a lot of people who are running for office say, I think our political system is broken largely because it's run by two private clubs.

And there are a lot of people in the leadership of both of those kind of clubs who are much more interested in beating up on each other than they are in actually solving their problems. They also realize that solving problems is hard. You got to read things and learn stuff. You got to talk to people that you don't even like. But the good news for them is because we've got a broken two choice political system. You can get rid of without solving people's problems just by demonizing the minds of solving our problems in part because they don't have to to get reelected.

And I've had enough of it. We should change it. about that village in Iowa which has a proud tradition of looking and going you know we vote for you for you. We're going to make sure there's guard rails up around what we do. First state ever to create an independent redistricting commission. Yes. Americanbased judicial selection system. policy. I want us to take the next step in our proud tradition and be among the first states to end the system of the lesser of two equals because it doesn't work for us.

We have a crisis of high costs. We have a crisis of high corruption. And we have a crisis of cancer. We have those things all in part because this system does work to solve problems. If we want to make it work, here's the thing. We need to work because there's a lot of people, like I said, who are happy to have you not getting along with your neighbors. They're happy to have you angry with your neighbors if it means that then you are easier for them to control.

And so, we have to do something a little bit oldfashioned to actually make the system work again to love our neighbor. So, I want to start by having us do that tonight. I'm going to ask a couple of questions. If you should raise your hand in order to be honest, let me encourage you. It's going to be okay. We're just going to clap for you if you raise your hand. Don't be scared. Please raise your hand if you have never come to one of my town halls before.

Whoa. Okay. Please raise your hand if you're a registered Republican with us here tonight. Thank you to our here tonight. Thank you. Because we're in the same private club. And let's have a round of applause for the Democrats, too. And then to demonstrate that Republicans and Democrats can work together along with independents and others to sing, we're going to sing the first verse from America. It starts opening world for spacious skies.

I have the microphone that will not kick us off. Really big group. We're going to need one person to start us. And I want it to be somebody from over there. You pick a note, start singing, and we're all going to join you. for waves [singing] of rain for purple [singing] mountainsty. through God [singing] shed his grace on the ground with [singing] brother to shining. Anybody else feeling? I've done that 182 times in this camping.

That time we got that was that was really good. Uh shouldn't politics feel like that all the time? You get a bunch of people, yeah, sure, we disagree, but guess what? We're all in this together. Rightwing, leftwing, same bird. Maybe we should work together, right? I probably should introduce myself. My name's Rob. I'm running for the next governor. You never been one of these before. Born and raised in northeast Iowa. >> Okay.

We know each other. What's her last? >> Oh, folk like like Mrs. Fool. Okay. She I think she was my fourth grade teacher. Well, anyways, good to see you. Uh family has been in decor since we got off the boat from Norway. Uh it was in the 1800s and my mom was a mother from Cedar Raptors Washington. >> She's a warrior. You didn't know that the Washingtons were warriors, but it makes sense. Uh class of seven if that matters. um born and raised in Coral.

My they met at Luther, Harriet and raised my sister and I there. And then my wife is Christine. She was born and raised in Dennis and in Gilbert, which is close to Ames. Uh we met 16 years ago at Backyard Park. Got married 14 years ago and our two boys are 12 and 10. And so no diapers, no naps, no teenagers. I was grown up before. Four important parts of my upbringing. Going to church, hunting, fishing, and my first job, which taught me a lot, catching chickens.

Three of those things I still enjoy today. Uh when I registered to vote, I register as an independent voter. probably doesn't surprise you. We were here for the first five minutes of this thing. I don't know why we have to be Democrats and Republicans to begin with. But I also realized pretty early on after that that you have to register with the party in order to vote in your primary. So I did. Before we move on, can we comment on how unamerican that is? >> Seriously, here in America, you have a constitutional right to vote.

Your tax dollars are paying for these elections, but you're told, "Sorry, you won't get to participate unless you sign a piece of paper joining a private club first." Screw that. That's wrong. In my early 20s, I was like, "You can't believe." And so our adventure is a few reasons by faith. What you do to the least of these, you can do to me. I know Jesus is for the little guy. I think the Democratic party at its best is the party for the little guy.

I also really like to eat and drink water and you want to have clean water for fishing. You can't win for drinking water. So the Democratic party clean your ability to enjoy the great outdoors should depend on whether or not you can buy a slice of it. And I remember at the time when I was in high school, public land, um I remember building balancing the budget using the surplus to pay down the debt for us. [applause] When I registered as an independent or as a Democrat, I didn't leave my independent mind behind.

I have said things in the course of this campaign that some people in my party disagree with. That's okay. I would rather tell you what I think than try to remember what I said. It's much easier. In addition to that, let me say this. If when it's time to vote, you're looking at the options and you think that on the issues that are most important to you, I'm better overall, then please vote for me. If you're looking at every single issue and you think you agree with me on all of them, then please see a psychiatrist.

Okay? Disagreement is natural, right? It's normal. And Can I suggest something that is true for me that I think is probably true for you too? The best conversations that I have had in my entire life are not the conversations where I say something and somebody else goes, "Yeah." Or where I say something and someone else says, "Yep." It's where I say something and somebody else goes, "You know, I see where you're coming from on that, but I think about it differently.

And here's what I think about it." Ooh, now we're getting into something interesting, aren't we? Because every once in a while, even the people who are mostly wrong, you realize are only mostly wrong. Sometimes, uh, they have a good point. And the more that we listen to each other, the more I realize that most of us want the same things. We just have to be able to have a real conversation about getting there in order to understand each other and progress in our lives that we share together.

[applause] When I finished my education, which was at the law school here at Gox, [applause] I went to work. I went to work at the attorney general's office, 7 years as the chief public corruption prosecutor there. So, I prosecuted the Iowa film office tax credit scandal, uncovered and prosecuted the largest lottery rigging scheme in American history. Thank you. And uh prosecuted the only American prosecution of a Ponzi scheme from Papa New Guinea that ens snared about half a dozen Ians from North Central Iowa for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Yeah, these cases weren't easy. They were hard ones. There's a reason that that was the only American prosecution of the International Bank of Mikamui. It is what it is, right? When we went to trial on the uh lottery rigging scheme, there was a nationwide CBS This Morning broadcast the morning we started evidence saying, you know, the defense has got a pretty powerful argument for a reasonable doubt. We think the defense may win this case.

We won that case instead. The hard things to do in life, you got to do them sometimes because they're hard, right? Didn't somebody else say that once? My parents taught me. I know that if you have a job to do and it's a hard job to do, you still do it the right way, even if it's harder to do it right the way because it's important to do it right. I also noticed in my time at the attorney general's office that uh a lot of the folks in the auditor's office thought the same way and I was working with the auditor's office to be clear because they do Iowa's public corruption investigations and so their investigations would land on my desk for me to decide what to do with them and I realized that nobody in that office was deeply trained in how courtrooms work.

They were all accountants and CPAs. God bless accountants and CPAs. But if your job in your office is also to promote government efficiency and to conduct public corruption investigations, you probably want someone who's going to be able to make sure those investigations work in a courtroom. Fair? And so I thought, well, I could run for state auditor and make that work. I also dug in and saw that the office has a tremendous power to promote government efficiency and they weren't doing it.

I want to be state auditor. Sign me up. Not only could we make the investigations work better in a courtroom, but we could also use the office to promote government efficiency, which is good for everybody. So, I ran in 2018 and I won. And in my first term, we made a number of changes. We changed it so that you don't have to have a 4-year degree. If you have a two-year accounting degree, you can work in the auditor's office.

We changed it so that if you want to live in rural Iowa or a small town in Iowa and work in the auditor's office, now you can do that. You don't have to just live in De Moines, Ames, or Iowa City. Nothing against De Mo as or Iowa City, but they're doing okay. If we can have people who work for the state of Iowa who want to live in small towns, good. We should let those people do that. It's good for those small towns in a way those families are going to be valued in that small town in a way that they won't be missed the same way in a place that grows pretty easily.

We also started that government efficiency program. It's called PI public innovations and efficiencies. Uh it's been used by Johnson County, used by Iowa City, used by Iowa City schools. You go across the state almost every single county almost uh and the vast majority of cities and school districts have used it as well. It's been copied in two other states because it's really good at saving tax dollars. In addition to that, I took a solitary stand against our tax dollars getting used to bail out the worst wrongdoing by government insiders.

Sexual harassment cases where we are paying out millions of dollars and the person who's doing the harassing isn't paying a thing. It makes no sense at all. There's a law in Iowa that says that we can hold them personally accountable. That law has never been used. And so when the settlement came forward for the first of these cases, it was Dave Jameson. He was running the Iowa Finance Authority. He harassed the women that he worked with so badly that the state agreed to settle their claims for millions of dollars.

And I said, "Well, are we going to go after Dave Jameson cuz the taxpayers didn't do this harassment?" And all I got was excuses from people. And I'm sorry, both political parties. Well, Rob, we could do that, but it'd be risky. We've never used that law before. Well, guys, maybe we should start. Maybe the fact that this happens demonstrates that this law is there for a reason. And if we did something about it, it wouldn't happen again.

[applause] Well, Rob, I mean, maybe, but you know, we wouldn't want to discourage people from joining public service. Some people we would want to discourage from joining public service actually. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. [applause] Thanks for mentioning that. That's a whole other reason that I want to do it now. Right. When it became clear that I was the only person that was pushing for this and no one else was going to go along with it, I could have shut up.

It's a law that's never been used before. It's not like anyone was calling me and telling me to fight this fight. I could have gone along to get along. I could have avoided having awkward conversations and awkward meetings with people that I knew. I didn't. I pissed off a bunch of powerful people in both political parties. As your state auditor, I'd like to keep pissing them off. As your governor, [applause] we're not going to do what's wrong just because we've been doing it that way.

We're going to do what's right. >> [applause] >> We also uncovered a record amount of misspent money across the state of Iowa in my first term as the state auditor. We did that because I built a senior leadership team of people actually who disagree with each other and work together. You'll notice that this is a theme across this campaign. If you haven't heard it already, you're going to hear it now a few times. Some of you might be our Republican friends and neighbors who were sitting there going, "Sand, when you gave Bill Clinton credit for balancing the budget, that wasn't fair.

He had to work with the Republican Congress, and you should give them credit, too." To which I say, "I just did." Good for the Republican Congress. Different people who think differently from each other working together oftenimes get to a better answer. When I ran for auditor, it was in part because there was no one with a law enforcement background or a prosecutor's background in the office. And it showed and I knew that different people who think differently from each other would do better work and make those investigations work better in a courtroom.

In addition to that, I promoted those people who were independents and Republicans to the most senior positions in the auditor's office because I wanted to be around people who think differently than me because every once in a while I'm almost wrong. And if I have someone there who thinks I'm wrong most of the time, they won't hesitate to let me know. Fair, right? People who like politics, they tell me I'm doing it wrong when they hear that story.

They're like, "Rob, you're supposed to punish the people who support your opponent. You're supposed to promote the people that support you. That's how it works. That's how you get everybody to be scared of you, Rob. I have two answers to that. Number one, who is ever going to be scared of me? Look at this face. As a sweet old lady told me live on KCCI, you look like you're 12. Second answer, more seriously. What if I'm not trying to do politics?

Whatever happened to the idea of public service that after an election? [applause] That's the idea that after the election, the winner says to the loser, "Hey, election's over. I won." But you know what? Send a couple of your people over. Even a broken clock like you is right twice a day. And so by working together, we found a record amount of misspent money. Do you know what happened after that? They literally changed the law in De Moine to make it harder for us to find misspent money.

I wish I was kidding you. You know, we talked at the beginning about how Iowa has a wonderful tradition of good government, right? And here we are in Iowa and I just described a law. Well, let me describe it first. But the audit office cannot look at. Anybody here ever tried that? They got audited before. Here you can look at this stuff over there. What about that stuff? No, you can't look at that over there. That's not for you.

You laugh because it's so laughable. That is how corrupt our state government is right now. They literally passed that law. >> [applause] >> So, how is it that in Iowa I'm describing a law that sounds like it came from Illinois, right? It's a great question. Here's how. 10 years of one party control. I don't care which party it is. One party control means fewer people with more power for too long. Power corrupts and absolute power Absolutely. >> Crops absolutely.

And so here we are. We've had 10 years of one party control in the state of Iowa. That's what brought us here. Meanwhile, we are 48th for personal income growth, at the bottom for economic growth. We're at the top for cancer growth. We have a water quality crisis in this state. We have a public education crisis in this state. And their definition of a problem they really need to address in De Moines is, hey, the state auditor won't quit finding all the money we misspent.

Time for change. I'm sick and tired of the people in control of this state abusing our state and abusing your taxpayer resources because they think they're just members of the right private club and they won't get held accountable for it. [applause] And here's here's what I want us to get back to. Here's what I want us to get back to. Okay? I'm running to be your next governor. I want to be your next governor. To be clear, if I am your next governor, I'm going to be working with the Republican legislature.

Okay? If that is news to you, good evening. You slept in. It's 2026. I don't know what year you fell asleep. But there are large majorities in both the Iowa House and the Iowa Senate of Republicans. Some of those Republicans would tell you even they wish their majorities were a little bit smaller. Maybe they will be after election day, but they're still going to be there. >> [applause] >> because those majorities are still going to be there.

We're going to get back to what an Iowa tradition is, which is what I want. I want this state to be Iowa, not the Illinois that they already turned it into. The way we get there is through divided government. When we talk about our culture in this state, we talk about who we are. Think about the decisions that we have made. I'm 44 years old. We sent Tom Harkin and Chuck Grassley to the United States Senate together forever, right?

We weren't confused about whether or not they were in the same party. We knew they weren't, but we figured that was a good way to get them to work together. 30 of my first 34 years alive, we had divided government in De Moine in the state capital building. And I actually heard Mike Gronto and Linda Utmire, the Democratic Senate leader and the Republican House leader, say together, "We do our best work when we are forced to work together." Forced by the people of the state of Iowa.

[applause] That's an Iowa tradition. That's what I want us to get back to. I know this isn't hard for anybody to understand uh because you know Iowa's culture pretty well. This is the same thing and it's the same four words that you can describe you would use no matter where you're from in Iowa to describe this process. It's what my grandpa was doing at 6:00 a.m. Hardies coffee and then 7 a.m. McDonald's coffee. And uh my mom does it in her knitting group and then in her sewing group.

In all of these situations, no matter where you're doing it, you're not taking party ID on the way in the door for your coffee. When everybody sits down and the table's full, you don't have people raise their hand for which party they're in and tell the minority party. You sit there and be quiet. The rest of us are going to do all the talking and all the deciding. No, you wouldn't do that cuz that's crazy. I like the look on your face right now.

Actually, you're like, who would ever do that? Politicians, right? Ians wouldn't do that because we know that no one person or party has all the right answers. And we're respectful enough to know that even a broken clock is right twice a day. And so we work together no matter where you go in the state of Iowa can describe it the same way. What did you do at breakfast, grandpa? Same as usual. Solving the world's problems, right?

I want us to get back to that in De Moines. And that's exactly what we're talking about when we're talking about making a state that isn't redder or bluer, but better and truer. Thanks for being here. Johnson County, happy to take your questions. [applause] We're going to we're going to move into Q&A. Zoe's got a microphone over there. I want to start by doing something that Well, look, I'm going to start by doing something that St.

Francis of Aisi suggested. Preach the gospel at all times. When necessary, use words. So, I can talk about Democrats and Republicans listening to each other, or I can hand the microphone to someone who said they're a registered Republican and see what they have to say. How will you get the auditor's office back to investigating? [applause] This is one of those things where we can use that natural tension in a positive way.

Cuz right now, let me tell you something. Uh by the time you leave here tonight from this town hall, you will have spent more time in this meeting than the legislative oversight committees spend overseeing state government per year. less than an hour average per year. Why? Because it's all one little private club looking out for each other. And instead of thinking in terms of our constitution and looking across the divide at the governor's office and seeing a co-equal branch of government, the legislature looks up and goes, "Oh, there's our boss.

We better not do any oversight, guys." Right? I bet that'll change. If I'm the governor, all of a sudden they'll remember, "Hey, we should do oversight. It's important." You know, and [applause] my suspicion is that they will happily give the auditor's office the power to audit again freely as they should have it because all of a sudden they'll reme remember that, oh yeah, we want to have plenty of oversight and auditing of the Sand Administration.

And I'll say, great, let's do that. Good question. You got one over there. Who's got Raise your hand if you have a question, folks? And then what what we're going to do is this person's going to ask a question. Keep your hand up if you have one. We got a big room and we want to have Zoe to be at a person's side with the next question. >> And Rob, I have a mic over here too. >> Where? Oh, hi. [laughter] It's Josie. >> I've got a question for you. >> Okay. >> Hi.

Just wondering what we're going to do to restore women's rights and our health care system in this state. It's in dialogue. >> [applause] [applause] >> I think it's two questions. There's women rights and then healthcare. And I'll answer them both. Uh I'm a supporter of a woman's right to choose. The the decision to take away [applause] I think the DOS decision was wrongly decided. I think that Row versus Wade was a reasonable compromise that uh was a that had stood the test of time for 50 years.

Uh was it perfect? No. But it created a framework through with which we could understand the choices that we had in our lives and the consequences of them. Uh I do not support the six week abortion ban. I thought that that was a mistake when it was passed. >> [applause] >> But let me remind you though, I know I'm going to be working with the Republican legislature and I cannot repeal that law unilaterally. I can't. I feel like I have spent most of my life listening to politicians promise that they're going to do stuff that they can't do.

And all it ever does is undermine trust in the system. And so I don't run around and say, "I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that when I know that I won't be able to do it because like I said, I'd rather be honest with you." Right? You You're welcome. [applause] Here's here's what I can do. Here's what I can do. The folks that are in charge of the state of Iowa, when that six-week ban was upheld, said, "We have more work to do.

They will come for IVF. They will come for surrogacy. They will come for contraception. And I will veto every single bill that they put on my desk. Healthcare in general much bigger issue, but this is a really huge one. And I I want to take a second to recognize how bad the cuts are are that are coming from the one big beautiful bill actwa credit to the Atma healthcare clinic unfortunately that closed down but when they did so they showed they appreciate accountability.

They said we are closing now because these cuts are coming and we want to have an orderly process for our patients because we care about them. We're [snorts] going to work on sending them to Centerville. And then soon after that, the Centerville Clinic said, "We too are going to be closing down because of these cuts that are coming." So, I can't as governor reverse that. That was done at the federal level. Here's something that we can do and we can do it with an executive order and I will do it with you an executive order and that is end the privatization of Medicaid in the state of Iowa.

It has been a disaster for this state. They raised taxes on most Ian's health care plans just this year in order to pay for the profits of the private MCOs's that run the program. I hope you will talk to healthcare providers that you know they will probably tell you that their costs have gone up. Many of them have had to take out lines of credit in order to stay afloat. Many of them have had to hire new full-time employees just to argue all day long on the phone with these MCOs's about getting paid.

[snorts] Who pays for the interest on that line of credit? We do. Who pays for the salary for that person that's just arguing all day long? We do. Right? So, it's driven up costs for everyone in the state of Iowa and it's driven down the quality of care. We audited the program. We found that after privatization, the number of illegal denials of care went up in Iowa by 900%. Right. Now, the Reynolds administration didn't like our calculations.

So, we said, "You know what? Let's just run them the way you want us to." 500% increase in illegal denials of care. The only reason that 500% doesn't sound totally insane is I said 900 first. The system is broken and it's a handout. And it's a great example. I got to say one more thing about this. It's a great [snorts] example of how important it is to have a governor that lives in Iowa and has been living in Iowa full-time.

[applause] I know this I know this system is broken because I live here and I've been watching what it does. And he likes to say, well, lots of case lots of states have privatized Medicaid. And you know what? They didn't privatize it as quickly as Iowa did. So quickly that the federal government told them slow down. They didn't privatize it as completely, including for populations of people that almost never have their care privatized.

And they also hadn't already had the Iowa Medicaid Enterprise, a wonderful thing that our state government was doing where they actually stole the tips and tricks from the private companies and just incorporated them into private Medicaid to trim the fat, the waste out of the program already. So when it was privatized and it was done so quickly and it was done for everyone, a lot of those MCOs's I don't even think knew that the fat had been trimmed out of the program already.

And so the only thing they could do in order to try to make money was to deny care to people who were owed care and deny payment to doctors and nurses and physical therapists and optimaticians and mental health therapists who had done the work and were supposed to be getting paid for it. And if my opponent lived here, he would know that. [applause] >> [applause] >> What are you going to do about private schools getting our taxpayer money?

It needs to go back to public schools. [applause] >> This one. So, uh, my boys got to Iowa public schools. I'm proud to send our kids to Iowa public schools. That's important to me. When I was reading the bill before it became a law, I was sitting in my office in the capital and reading through the law and I'm reading this as the guy that prosecuted the Iowa film office tax credit scandal so I know a loophole when I see one.

And in a short version, here's the way it works. All the money has to get spent as tuition. So you've got your voucher and it has to be paid as tuition until tuition is paid in full. And only then at that point if if there's anything left can you use it to cover anything else. As we know tuition has gone up an awful lot in private schools. So there's usually nothing left. And so when I realized that that basically all the money was going as tuition, I flipped through the bill to see where are the restrictions on how private schools can spend money that has been paid as tuition.

One thing on on God's green earth [snorts] that you cannot do with taxpayer money as a private school in Iowa. Anybody know what it is? Give it back. Gold star. Good job. You can't give it back. No refunds or re rebates. Sorry. No rebates. Which is a good rule because you don't want them to be like, "Okay, so we charge you the $8,000, but we'll give you the $2,000 back in cash." Cuz that would be bad. Can anybody think of like a couple other hundred things that you don't want done with your tax dollars?

Right? If a private school wants to buy booze with tax money, they can do it. If they want to take a private retreat to Florida in January, they can do that. If they want to buy a car, they can do that. Expensive leather furniture for the teachers lounge, that is a-ok. Okay. With your tax money. Also, I don't know how we would find out because we're not allowed to audit private schools spending of public money. That's ridiculous.

[applause] So, I took the bill out and I walked a guy through that in the um rotunda who was pushing for the bill to explain it to him cuz I figured he must have missed that. And I was like, and so I walked him through it just the same way we did right now. And then at the end, I was like, "So, there's no oversight." And I was expecting him to say like, "Oh, we we noticed that yesterday and we're reddrafting the bill." Or, "Oh, hold on a second.

That can't be right. Let me see that cuz surely we want public oversight of public money. And uh me in that moment it was like that meme you see on social media, you sweet summer child. So innocent, so naive. I'm thinking like of course we want to have oversight for this. And he goes and says to me instead, "Yeah, I know. We don't want public oversight of private schools. Then don't give them public money. No problem.

Problem solved. I want public oversight for public money. >> [applause] >> So, here's what I'm proposing. Number one, same financial rules for how you spend the money. Number two, audits. Audits are good. We should see what is going on there. So, there's oversight because we all know how oversight is helpful for us, right? You're driving away from here and you see the sheriff in the rearview mirror as you're driving away.

Where do your eyes go next? Speedometer. Yeah. Right. That's why oversight is good. You know it yourself. Uh, and here's the other things I want to change in the school vouchers program. They say they want school choice. Cool. Then let's have it. Private schools that take public money should not be able to reject students they prefer not be in their class. That's not school choice. [applause] according to the rhetoric of all the people who support this bill, they should want that as long as they're being honest, right?

That we make it so that if you take any public money at all, you also have to take the student because I think I heard somebody say the money follows the student. I think I heard somebody say we want parents and kids to be able to choose their schools. So, let's go ahead and do that. In addition to that, folks, we have a $ 1.3 billion budget deficit. We don't need to give this money to the wealthiest people in the state of Iowa who are going to send their kids to private school anyway.

[applause] >> I have one over here. Rob, where do I >> turn around? >> I'm turning. You know what? I'll hear the question from somewhere. [laughter] >> How do you feel about the national popular vote uh state compact in the current electoral system? Oh, is that is that the thing where uh if enough states get to it, it switches? >> I don't like it. >> Sorry. Who else have we got? >> I have a question about voting rights. >> Oh, I'm sorry, sir.

There's a microphone, a lady with a microphone behind you there. >> I have a question about voting rights. >> Yeah. We know and you know as a lawyer that 97% of people who are incarcerated will be coming back to our communities. These people will have to go out and get jobs. They will pay taxes, but they will remain victims of taxation without representation. What's your plan to restore voting rights to people who have paid their dues, finished their sentences, paid all their restitution, and want to become solid citizens again? >> Good, good question. >> [applause] >> This is so this is an opportunity to uh point out agreement with someone that I have plenty of disagreements with.

I appreciated that Governor Reynolds really pushed to get that restoration be statutory in the state of Iowa because what this has been has been an executive order back and forth back and forth back and forth. And so one governor will say, "We're restoring your rights." And then the other governor comes in and says, "We're taking them away again." And at the end of the day, if you've had your rights restored and taken away so many times, are you really going to trust that?

And so I I appreciated that Governor Reynolds really said like, "Hey, we should just make this a statute so that it can't be changed by executive order." I don't right now recall whether or not they got that done. Uh if they got it done, good. Then we don't need to do anything else with it. But I'm a supporter of the restoration of those rights in general. >> I [applause] have one. >> All right. >> I'm a lover of the outdoors just like you.

What's the plan? What's the first step in getting water quality back on track? >> Yeah, good question. [applause] The f the first step is doing something that we should have done 16 years ago when Ians voted for it. we should fund I will. It's a no-brainer. This is uh something that passed as a constitutional amendment in the state of Iowa with 63% of Ians voting for it. I voted for it. My opponent didn't. Of course, he didn't live here.

He says he wants to fund it, too. Okay, good. Then we have an agreement. But to me, this is just bottom line table stakes stuff. 63% of Ians said we want to have a trust fund that is going to make sure that we have outdoor recreation opportunities and clean water in the state of Iowa. And here's why I am going to be more motivated by this. I'm raising my kids right here. I live right here. They are drinking Iowa water.

When we're playing outside, we're playing in Iowa water. And this is what's really important to me. My kids are now 10 years away from being able to choose where they're going to live when they grow up. I know where I'm going to be. I want them to be here. What makes me angry about this is we are 16 years behind schedule. All they had to do was say, you know what, the people wanted that and so let's do it because the people said they wanted it and they still haven't done it.

And so we're 16 years away from the level of clean water that we would have 10 years from now when my kids are making that decision. Here's the other thing. You want to address the brain drain in the state of Iowa? Yeah, >> me too. Couple of things that we can do. Now, a lot of people I think two big reasons that people leave. One, they go want to go to a big city, in which case, good luck. We don't have one of those, but we bet after you try one, you'll be back.

Number two, they leave for outdoor opportunities. They want to be somewhere where it's easier to play outside. Well, we're never going to offer them mountains. So, if that's what's on the list, okay. But if you just want to have a stream or a lake that you can see into a ways, we're 16 years behind schedule on doing that. We need to fund the trust. We need to open our conservation programs to make sure that farmers who are signing up for conservation programs are actually allowed to use them.

Right now, they're placed on weight lists every single year. And then politicians who aren't funding the programs, if you say, "Hey, we need cleaner water." They're like, "Oh, are you mad at farmers?" No, idiot. We're mad at you. [applause] I apologize if it seems like I'm upset. That's because I am. We also So, here's how we do this. Expand conservation programs access. Think about this for a second if you would. We talked about school vouchers program.

If you make a million bucks a year, you can just say, "I'm taking the voucher." And the state says, "You got it." But here we have struggling farmers whose income has gone down 50%. And they're saying, "I know I'm struggling, but I still want to do a better job with water quality." And politicians tell them, "Sorry, program is full. We got our priorities crooked there, don't we? I want to do something that'll have a tremendous impact when we fund Iowa.

I want us to have the single biggest wetlands and grazing land restoration that anyone has ever seen. Yeah. [applause] Here's why. Here's why. All the conservation programs are good that are infield programs. We should do those. But nothing filters water better than nature's water filter. And wetlands are fun, right? I got four and a half Fs for things you can do in a wetlands. You can take a field trip. You can fowl hunt.

You can float. You can fish. And you can photograph. That's half an F. Everyone can go outside and enjoy them. And so those folks that are leaving because they want to have more outdoor outdoor recreation opportunities because we're 49th in public land in America, they will have more reason to stay. Appreciate you asking the question. >> Okay, we're going to do one more. >> Says you. What are your plans to do about the ridiculously low minimum wage?

And so many Ians are not >> out of poverty because of this low low minimum wage. Why isn't it $15$20 an hour? >> Good question. [applause] There's there's two things here. Uh number one, I tend to be a supporter of local control. And if there's a county where you want to have a higher minimum wage, you should be able to have a higher minimum wage [snorts] in that county. [applause] There's three reasons why I tend to like local control.

Number one, your local officials are more accessible to you, right? You could say that right now you have your sheriff surrounded. You're like, uh-oh. Number two, every community is different. And so what's going to work in Johnson County and what's going to work in Jefferson County aren't the same. And so it shouldn't be one sizefits-all. Number three, we're not going to have 99 different solutions when counties can resolve an issue, but we're going to have 30.

And then we can figure out which ones are working and which ones aren't and move in the direction of things that work. So a higher floor is something that a county ought to be able to have. It also then means that if you don't like it, you don't have to disrupt your entire life and move out of the state. You can just move over the county line if it's the biggest deal in the world to you. But yeah, we should increase the minimum wage in the state of Iowa.

I support doing it and I think it's important. [applause] I know. Keep going. I know. So, they said one more question, but I have a whole thing, which is you can't tell me what to do, which is a good trait for a governor. So, we'll take a few more. >> Great. My 13-year-old trans neph uh neighbor uh wants me to speak up on his behalf. Uh [applause] He he recognized in the second grade uh that he was not a girl and he got the counseling and the school worked with him.

A big round of applause for the Iowa City school system that [applause] has supported him every step of the way. I think you know you have done a great job tonight. I think you know the right wing wants elected officials like you to quack the oh I don't think men should uh play in women's sports. Nobody wants men. There are many frankly trans uh people uh aren't that great athletes. Don't tell Max I said that. He's He's at baseball practice.

And so, can you make clear that you support trans people, you support trans athletes, you are for equal rights for everybody. Where do you stand? Can you take back that comment? [applause] YOU KNOW, the right-wing wants us to think it's trans people who are raising the cost of living. It's trans people who made gas prices go up. It's billionaires. Stick to who the problem is, not >> Well, it it's it's uh it's definitely a stupid new war in Iran that's making gas and diesel prices go up.

That's that's for sure. Two things. There have been two laws passed uh related to transgender folks recently. One is the sports question. I tend to agree with them on that and I know you might be disappointed in me. Okay, here's the other one. They repealed civil rights. So now in the state of Iowa, you can be fired from your job and you can be evicted from your apartment because of who you are. And I think that's wrong also for the same reason.

It's fairness. That's not fair to people's people. It's [applause] not bottom line on this stuff. At the end of the day, I want state government to get back focused on the issues that impact 100% of islands. Right? We have a water quality crisis. We have a cancer crisis. We have an economic crisis. We have a lot of issues. right? Public education, right? Healthcare in the state of Iowa. We should be addressing these issues.

And that's why I want to say we're vetoing all the culture war bills. We need to have state government addressing the issues that impact everyone in the state of Iowa. Now, I want to make it clear. I want everybody to feel welcome in this state. >> I know that doesn't mean that everybody gets exactly what they want, right? I say to every group uh when I speak to them, you're not going to get 100% of what you want from me.

I think for myself, proud to have Iowa's teachers endorsement. Really appreciate that. [applause] When I when I accepted that endorsement, I said to Iowa's teachers, you won't get 100% of what you want from me. But that doesn't mean that we should be making people feel unwelcome in the state of Iowa. We're making them feel unappreciated. I want this state government to reflect what is good about Ians and Ians are welcoming people.

And when you're frustrated with your government, [clears throat] I want you to remember a great quote from Mark Twain. Patriotism is loving your country all the time and your government when it deserves it. [applause] I know we're supposed to be wrapping up. I know. I know. My my my question askers went away. My microphone havers my my microphone havers went away. This will be the last question because I know we're getting short. >> What do you think we could do to restore chapter 20 to its former Bob Ray glory? >> Good question.

THE IDEA that in your job you can only negotiate for your pay means you can't negotiate forever anything, right? Cuz if you go in and you say, "All right, we want better pay." They can be like, "Cool. We're just going to take it out of your benefits, right? But that's the that's the change that was made to Chapter 20. Uh that doesn't make sense. It's totally illogical. I don't support that. If the legislature would change that, I'd be happy to work with them in that.

I don't think they're going to, but I do think that we can move in a better direction. Here's the better direction overall, right? If I win this race, I'm going to wrap us up. If I win this race, we can get back to divided government. When we go where we go from there is a little bit different. I want to get to that, but first, we've barely mentioned my opponent. I do want to talk about him for just a couple of minutes.

I hope that's all right with you. I'll start right here. Uh we're going to have some debates. They're coming up. Things are getting heated. Keep in mind over the next two months that he's a human being. I think that's a good place to start. Okay. That said, I think I'm the better choice to be the next governor. And I'll tell you why. [applause] This is pretty simple stuff. I can't believe that this is the situation that we find ourselves in.

We have real problems in the state of Iowa and you are not going to solve them with a part-time Ian as your governor. You're not. Here's the facts. He has mostly lived outside of Iowa for the last 20 years. He's been working in Montana to take healthc care away from people. He was working in Colorado in politics. Most of this time as a paid political operative full-time, working politics full-time. And then he was down in Kansas working in politics before he started a private school down there that he is still the president of now.

Now he voted in Kansas in 18 and in 20 and in 22. He registered to vote in Iowa just in time to vote October 2024. But when he was but but after he launched his campaign for governor of Iowa, his plane spent 75 nights in Witchah to 51 in Bellplane, Iowa. You can tell me what you want about where you live. I'm a numbers guy. Even in 2026, 75 is more than 51. When he was asked about this, the first time he was asked, he was a little more open than he has been since then.

He said, "Well, I'd have to change my living situation. If I get elected, I'll be in Iowa as much as humanly possible." Which is what you say when your least favorite in-laws are coming to town, right? Totally be there as much as humanly possible. It's kind of funny cuz seriously, what was going through his head to run in Iowa instead of Kansas? But it's also not because when it becomes apparent to him that this is a full-time job, who's going to suffer? 3.1 million Ians. 3.1 million.

What's he going to do when the floods hit? Zoom in. FaceTime, right? What's he going to do when we're trying to get a package together to finally clean up our water in the state of Iowa? Is he going to be talking to legislators and they're all in their little boxes on Zoom with him? Not even going to be in person. How's that going to work? And it's not right. It's not. There's some other real differences. You ask me about women's rights.

He supports a personhood bill that would ban all abortion at contraception. no exceptions. He called the decision to legalize gay marriage judicial tyranny when it happened in Iowa. He wants to ban mRNA vaccines that can help prevent cancer. He would ban them. Yeah. He wants to maintain the privatized uh Medicaid system. He wants to expand school vouchers and he calls my push for oversight of them somehow politics. Right?

Basically, he looks around at where Iowa is right now and says, "Keep going. This is great. I think it's time for change." And I think most Ians are going to agree on that. [applause] And so, [applause] and so, and so what is it that we want? Number one, if I win this race, we are back to divided government. The message is sent, hey, quit screwing around and start addressing the issues that are impacting every Ian's lives.

But what I really want at the end of the day is moving us towards a system where politicians are not led into temptation to serve insiders or special interest groups because we take away their power to do that. I'm talking about a bill, a single bill that would not just institute term limits, yes, but age limits, cognitive tests, a civics test. [applause] You should have [cheering] to pass. You should have to pass a civics test to get on the ballot. >> And if you can't pass it, study hard.

I believe in you. I know you can get it next time. Keep going. And if you hit 78 and you're still in office, thank you for being here. We appreciate your public service. Enjoy retirement, right? [applause] We should have a ban on trading stock if you're sitting in elected office. And we should have mandatory prison time for people who steal from taxpayers. [applause] And like I said at the beginning, no more taxpayer money for private clubs that want to exclude independent voters.

We should have a single open primary that every candidate is on. [applause] Send the top four to the general election. >> [applause] >> If we if we make it harder for politicians to get reelected just by demonizing our neighbors to each other, then it's going to be easier for us to get what we want out of politicians, which is clean water and an economy that is working for everyone in the state of Iowa, >> right? And civil rights, things that don't really bug other people, but that are, you know, helpful for a lot of people all around the place.

We can get there. We have work to do to get there. There's three things I want to ask you to do to help us out. Number one, no particular order, please donate to the campaign. If you've donated before, thank you. You may now donate again. Why is everybody laughing? Number two, please volunteer. We need people to knock doors. I know that we got a great county organization here. Thank you to the people that are active in that county organization knocking doors and making phone calls already.

Thank you. If you've never done it before, please sign up. We know you can do this. Maybe you want to drive and watch somebody knock doors for a little while first before you try it yourself. That's okay. We want drivers. We want drivers, too. After a little while, you'll realize actually they're having more fun than you are just sitting and waiting in the car. And you might want to try it. You might have a growth opportunity.

That's a good thing. Number three, social media. I want your help there. It's shortening our attention spans. It's filling our heads with lies and it's making us hate people that we love. But while you're there, please like and share my posts. I don't know. I don't know what to say, right? I mean, it's it's ridiculous. [applause] It's so awful. It's the worst thing. Also free advertising, so you'll take it. If you see a post spreading lies about me, don't touch it.

All the al algorithms, they work the same way. Any interaction with it means it's going to show it to more people. So you don't need to tell my opponent that he's lying about me. He knows. Did you see the post how they were like Rob Sand wasn't even at the Sihawk game? Like I literally was here. There's also the one about how I'm a billionaire, but apparently there's a guy named Robert Sans that's a billionaire. He has an S.

He has an S on the end. We do not. >> He lives in I didn't know that. He lives in Rhode Island. Um, if that's the level of homework that they're doing on the other side, I don't think you want him running our state, right? Pretty much everything that they've said about me on down the line is total nonsense. I will give him two things that he's gotten right. I can ride a skateboard and I do like pizza. >> [applause] >> It's delicious.

I want to end with something that I think is again common sense and I know where I am and I know this stuff democracy is important. You should be able to ask me questions that might be tough questions for me because that's democracy, right? Everyone should be able to do that. That's why one of the things we're proposing is mandatory town halls where you actually have to look people in the eye and answer their questions.

I think fewer elected officials would do things that are obviously bad if they have to go actually answer for them face to face. Right? Do you know why I think that? Cuz I was a kid once. And I remember focusing on my shoes when there were things that I didn't want to talk to my parents about when I had screwed up. And I'm a parent now. We had one of those moments this week when all of a sudden I couldn't get eye contact anymore.

I was like, "Buddy, what did you do?" Politicians work the same way as children. They understand the sensation of guilt and shame. And if we could have the opportunity to force them to look in the eye, they would do fewer things that are obviously bad. Bottom line is this. This system isn't working for us. It works for politicians who are running and who want to hold the power and who want to serve insiders and special interest groups instead of serving Ians.

[clears throat] But the way we fix it is by working together. Because I know this, think about this for a moment if you will. Here we sit in a place where political leaders in in both political parties run around and tell us about how they're going to make a place red or blue. Can you imagine anything stupider than that? I mean, I'm sorry if that's a thing that you say, but when I send my kids to school in the morning, I don't tell them, "Be blue." Cuz even when they were kindergarteners, they would have looked at me and said, "Dad, did you hit your head?

Blue is a color. I can't be blue. It doesn't mean anything, Dad." But how did we get so far into this partisan abyss that there are leaders in both of those parties that think that making a place red or blue is somehow supposed to be inspiring rhetoric or uh galvanizing or I don't know what it's supposed to really get you excited. I think it just sounds stupid and I'm really tired of it. I want to have conversations around issues that really matter for people.

And I know one thing. No matter where you are in the state of Iowa, Democrats, independents, Republicans, they say the same things when they send their kids to school in the morning. Be good. Tell the truth. Do your best. These aren't values that belong to one political party or another. They're not. A lot of powerful people want you to think that because if they can keep you angry, your neighbors that are voting differently than you, then it's easier for them to pick our pockets.

But we know better than that. And we have to remember that we know better than that. And if we do, you can help us get this message out there and win this race. We know it resonates. You know, we started this campaign. I had a guy come up to me at Lindale Mall in Cedar Rapids and he said, "Hey, you're running for governor. I'm going to register to vote for you." I said, 'You never voted before? No. How old are you? 28.

Now, here we are. That was the beginning of the campaign. Here we are near the end. And in Adair County, I just did my town hall there 2 3 weeks ago. And a woman came up and she said, "Hey, my husband can't be here with his cuz he's home with the kids right now, but he wanted me to tell you he's never voted before and he's registering to vote for you." And I said, "How old is he?" 36. People are ready for something bigger.

How many of you have had a relationship, someone that you care about that's gotten worse because of politics over the last 15 years? Why are we putting up with this? Did you see how many hands just went up? Why are we putting up with this? Why do we accept a system where people feel like it is their job and in fact the best way to achieve their ends to make you hate people that you used to love? Is there is there not enough hate in the world already?

Right. This is so wrong. [applause] I know we can get back on that path cuz that's been Iowa's tradition. We just got to get out there and talk to people about it. So, we got 50 days to do that. What I want you to do is I want you to help because I want us to get to the end of this election and all of us to say together, we did that. And I don't want us to say maybe we should have done a little bit more. And if you can help us out for these next 50 days, then we can get to that place where Iowa isn't about being redder or bluer, but better and truer.

Thank you, Johnson County. I appreciate you being here tonight. [applause] Appreciate your help. Thank you. [applause] true [music] and for someone else but not for me. [music] Love was out to get me. That's the way it seems. Disappointment. [music] Then I saw her face. [music] Now I'm a believer of her praise. >> [music] >> I'm doubt in my mind. I'm a [music] belie