Nikki Haley is running to be the first woman to be President and Kristi Noem has endorsed Trump to put her on the Trump’s VP short list but maybe the woman who should be President is Kim Reynolds, the governor of Iowa.
When Reynolds elected as Terry Branstad running mate as Lt. governor, no one would have expected Reynolds prove to be one of the most effective Governor and the perfect leader during the Covid pandemic. In many ways, she had her issues including two DUI’s in 1999 and 2000 where she hit rock bottom with problem drinking. Since 2000, she has been sober.
Her political career began as being the treasurer of Iowa 76th largest county before moving to the Iowa legislature in 2008. In 2016, she finally received her college degree while serving as Lt. governor at the age of fifty-seven.
Reynolds was an accidental governor when Branstad, the longest-serving governor in the state history, was appointed as ambassador to China and for many conservatives viewed her as a boring moderate, member of the political establishment. In 2018, she managed to win the election as governor in her own right by 2.7 percent and managed to clear fifty percent of the vote while most polls had her trailing in the race. Iowa rural west carried her over the top. Starting in 2016, Iowa was shifting to the right and moving light blue state through purple state before moving to the red category.
Michael Dukakis and Al Gore won Iowa plus Obama both won the state twice plus Tom Harkin, a long-time leftist icon won five terms. The state swung sixteen points as Trump carried the state by nearly ten points and repeated that in 2020 plus in 2022, Republicans carried all the congressional district and GOP holds 34-16 in the state senate and 64-36 in the state house. Kim Reynolds presided over the change from a purple state to a red state. While DeSantis gives credit to changing Florida from purple to hard red in 2022, overlooked was Kim Reynolds own coattails.
What changed Reynolds own image was her handling the Covid Pandemic. While Ron DeSantis, South Dakota Kristi Noem and Brian Kemp get credit for leading the opening, and DeSantis essentially became the leader of the skeptics camp, many did not see Kim Reynolds own performance which in the end match those of her follow governor. For many governors, they were forced to access without much guidance and very few had any public-health background, nor did it help that much of the information coming from Anthony Fauci and his follow scientists were contradictory if not outright wrong. As Kim Rynolds noted recently, she came out of Covid a different governor. What emerged was a more confident leader who used the Republican advantage to push transformative agenda and, in the process, won re-election of nearly 19 percent.
Democrats Attorney General and Treasurer lost in 2022 and now she chairs the Republican Governors Association which shows rising respect among her fellow governors. Republican parties in Minnesota, Michigan and Illinois do not have money and in disarray, Reynolds preside over one victory over another. As one reporter noted, “She talks in streams, with a message that’s both disciplined and detailed, long on things accomplished rather than grievances unaddressed or shadowy forces arrayed against her. She sounds, in short, like a winner.”
Reynolds record includes, expansion of school choice, a six-week fetal heartbeat abortion and cut taxes three times while phasing in a flat tax and reduces the state’s corporate-tax rate by more than half and eliminating taxes on retirement income. On the budget side, she streamlined state government while eliminating twenty-one cabinet-level agencies and kept Iowa budget growth below the rate of inflation.
Like DeSantis, she signed bans on sexually explicit books in school while dealing with sex and gender education and protecting minors from radical transgender medical treatments. She noted that she was step ahead of Florida banning critical race theories and public -employee trainings. She put her own stamp on the Iowa courts and this court reversed a 2018 ruling on the Iowa constitution protecting a right to abortion. (Litigation over the heartbeat bill is ongoing so this has yet to be settled.)
Kim Reynolds is not a bomb thrower and is what we in Iowa call, Iowa nice, and she has same ability that Reagan, explaining her position in a calm tenor and just a tenor could be what needed to have to bring back many of the suburban voters we lost in 2020.
Finally, back to Covid, Governor Reynolds understood that Iowa produces ten percent of the nation’s food supply and if a long blanket lockdown would have disastrous for food supply in America. And she withstood the criticism for opening up her economy. She was proven right and now, as Republicans look for option for 2024 who is not Trump, they might want to look the humble chief executive from Iowa.
The Donelson Files 