Watch Iowa

Our party must seize the patriotic center and deliver the New American Dream. On education, law & order, homeownership, and financial freedom, young Americans must see in us a valuable partner.

In Iowa, two candidates in their 40s are showing voters a different kind of Democrat. Rob Sand is running for governor. Josh Turek, Senate. Together, they are putting on a clinic, and every presidential hopeful should be taking notes.

Start with Sand, who is running the best political campaign in America in 2026. As the Iowa state auditor, he has tackled waste, fraud and abuse so uncomfortably for State House politicians that they tried to change the rules to stop him. So, he’s taking the issue on the campaign trail. Sand is running on an ‘Accountability for All’ agenda that includes age & term limits, cognitive tests, election reforms, and anti-corruption rules.

It’s not an angry or fear-mongering message, though. When government agencies save taxpayer money through his Public Innovations & Efficiencies (PIE) program, he sends them pie. At the start of every town hall, Sand asks the Democrats, Republicans, and independents in the room to raise their hands and applaud each other for showing up. Then, before talking politics, he leads the entire crowd in singing “America the Beautiful.” They are all neighbors and Americans first.

Barnstorming the state, too, is Turek. After competing four times in Paralympic basketball and winning two gold medals for Team USA, Turek came home and flipped a red seat in the Iowa State House. Against the all-politics-is-national trend, he won by going local, canvassing door-to-door in his wheelchair to have one-on-one conversations with independents and Republicans. In office, he’s been delivering on what he calls ‘prairie populism,’ including a right-to-repair law for farmers to fix their own tractors and attacks on the health insurance verticals that price-gouge prescription drugs.

With the Iowa primaries completed on Tuesday, Turek and Sand are on to November. Their campaigns are totemic for Democrats. For 2026, obviously: they are critical to winning the Senate and the House (their coattails can help Democrats flip two House seats in Iowa).

But also for 2028. The Iowa caucuses will be an early opportunity for presidential candidates to show Americans a different kind of Democrat. Those hopefuls should watch how my friends Rob Sand and Josh Turek are seizing the patriotic center.