Feenstra visits Creston, receives local endorsement

Within Iowa’s race for a governor to replace Kim Reynolds, two names have emerged. With the Democratic standout candidate Iowa Auditor Rob Sand already making waves, Iowa Republicans aren’t backing down.

U.S. Representative Randy Feenstra visited Creston this month to discuss with fellow Republicans his goals were he to obtain the gubernatorial position. His visit to Creston’s Pizza Ranch brought along an endorsement from local legislator Tom Shipley.

“I rarely come across anybody who works harder, was smarter at what he did and offered a high level of integrity,” Shipley said.

Shipley’s endorsement joins national endorsements from Senator Joni Ernst and fellow representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks to establish Feenstra as the leading Republican candidate.

The open-seat election, the first in Iowa since 2006, marks a chance for new leadership to emerge within the state’s political field. Republicans have won Iowa’s gubernatorial election since 2010. Both parties will hold their primary elections on June 2, 2026.

Feenstra has served as a U.S. Representative since 2021 and was a member of the Iowa Senate from 2009-2021. In Congress, Feenstra serves on the Agriculture Committee and the Ways and Means Committee.

Introducing himself to Creston Republicans, Feenstra toted accomplishments in lowering taxes for Iowans and expansion in agriculture markets as examples of his dedication to Iowa.

Still a U.S. Representative, Feenstra also discussed his commitments in the House, including tinkering with how the country provides health care. Feenstra said reducing the costs of health care is a fundamental goal for Iowa and the nation.

“The Affordable Care Act was never affordable,” Feenstra said. “It doubled, tripled premiums in the past year. We’ve got to change it.”

Moving to why he was running for governor, Feenstra described Washington D.C. as a “swamp,” saying nothing gets done. Despite recent success working with President Donald Trump, Feenstra said it’s time to come home.

“It’s time to take this great state to new heights,” Feenstra said. “That’s what I want to do.”

Feenstra, describing his childhood and adolescence in Hull, appealed to the location by saying he worked at his local Pizza Ranch as a kid. Pizza Ranch as a business began in Hull in 1981, and that location was where Feenstra would meet his wife, calling his relationship a “Pizza Ranch romance.”

After graduating college and working at businesses in his hometown of Hull, Feenstra said he lived through his own version of the American Dream. He said that perspective gave him motivation to give other Iowans the chance to have their own dreams.

“This is my vision. Number one, I want to make sure we are the most business- and ag-friendly state in the country,” Feenstra said. “That means we have to lower property taxes and freeze them. That means we have to reduce regulation.

“We also have to take the Big Beautiful Bill that I helped write with President Trump that got passed — there’s so many levers in that bill — but we’ve got to put those levers right here in Iowa and bring back manufacturing."

Education was Feenstra’s second priority, remembering times in the ‘80s and ‘90s when Iowa ranked high in state rankings. Feenstra said in the year he graduated, 1987, Iowa was the number one state in the country for education.

Describing education as a personal issue owing to Feenstra’s wife and parents serving as teachers, Feenstra said he wants education to return to the “fundamentals of math, science and history, not political agendas or DEI.”

“I don’t care if your kid struggles in school or is brilliant; we’ve got to help all kids,” he said.

Feenstra also supported introducing robotics and skilled trade courses in schooling, hoping to encourage students to build Iowa’s manufacturing sector.

In a national sense, Feenstra said the U.S. has been abused by foreign countries in manufacturing. When businesses utilize foreign labor, potential manufacturing jobs in the U.S. are drained. He said the nation’s tariffs help punish foreign manufacturing and predicted an influx of manufacturing opportunities for the country in the next six to 12 months.

“We’ve got to sell this country; we’ve got to sell this state. We’ve got to come here,” Feenstra said. “We’ve got the skills; we’ve got the workforce; we’ve got the work ethic. They’ve got to come back here.”

In order to encourage growth in Iowa, Feenstra said he wants to encourage the youth of Iowa to remain in the state. Job openings for the youth and furthering economic growth remained part of Feenstra’s priorities.

After listing his platform, Feenstra turned his attention to what will likely become his main opponent in the gubernatorial race. Incorrectly calling the state auditor “Tom Sand,” Feenstra envisioned a Sand governorship as “turning Iowa into Illinois or California.”

Shipley, calling Feenstra the best bet Iowa has for governor, was critical of Sand.

“People ask me, ‘do you think Rob Sand is going to have a chance?’ I say, ‘you bet he has a chance,’” Shipley said. “It scares me to death.”

Feenstra said he supports life at conception (with exceptions for abortions for rape and incest), shutting down immigration at the national border and following the Constitution, referring to all these issues as “not mean, not hateful or dangerous rhetoric.” Feenstra lamented the political assassination of Charlie Kirk for supporting the same issues.

For an Iowa-focused issue, Feenstra said he’s against outside companies utilizing eminent domain on private landowners. If Summit Carbon Solutions wants to use land for their carbon pipeline, Feenstra said he’d rather see landowners making deals than government interference.

“Iowa farmland belongs to the Iowa farmer. We’ve got to protect it,” Feenstra said.

Transportation infrastructure in Iowa needs to continue to be supported, Feenstra said. With the cross of interstate highways through the state — along with the Missouri and Mississippi rivers — keeping investments in transportation will allow for Iowa’s economy to grow.

Responding to a question on Iowa’s support of a state entity of the Department of Government Efficiency (Gov. Reynolds established the Iowa DOGE Task Force earlier this year), Feenstra took aim at SNAP and Medicaid fraud.

Feenstra said SNAP benefits on a national level had a “massive error rate,” specifically in liberal states with Feenstra once again citing Illinois and California. Iowa’s error rate was lower, with Feenstra saying Iowa had an error rate of 9-10%.

Still, Feenstra was supportive of continued scrutiny of SNAP benefits and work requirements of 20 hours per week. For his goal to “bring people up,” Feenstra said the eventual, long-term goal of SNAP is to graduate people off their benefits.

“I don’t care if it’s at a soup kitchen or if it’s got a truck, whatever. But you’ve got to show you’re working,” Feenstra said.

To support growth for agriculture, Feenstra stood against continued subsidies for farmers and instead supported expanding international markets. Citing a struggling corn and soybean market in Iowa, Feenstra said he wants to hold foreign countries, specifically China and India, accountable on their promises to purchase Iowa crops.

Both the Republican and Democratic primaries will take place next year on June 2. Other Republican candidates include Iowa state representative Eddie Andrews, former state representative Brad Sherman, former director of the state Department of Administrative Services Adam Steen and businessman/farmer Zach Lahn.