Statewide Iowa — Another Democrat has launched a campaign for governor and two state party leaders appear positioned to have key roles in deciding the schedule of events in the 2024 presidential race.
Democrat Deidra DeJear has been traveling the state for the past few weeks and formally kicked off her campaign for governor this weekend.
In 2018, DeJear won the Democratic Party’s Primary for secretary of state and became the first black Iowan nominated to run for statewide office. DeJear, a small business owner from Des Moines, says problems won’t be solved by one person, one party or one demographic. She also addressed how polarizing politics has become. DeJear asked her supporters to recognize the good in others with whom they disagree and seek some common ground.
In other political news, Iowa Republican Party chairman Jeff Kaufmann has been selected to lead the committee that recommends the order of state primaries and caucuses in the next presidential election. Kaufmann has been a staunch defender of having Iowa’s Caucuses be the lead-off event in the presidential nominating process. And Monday, former Iowa Democratic Party chairman Troy Price starts his new job as executive director of the New Hampshire Democratic Party. Party leaders from that state say one of his tasks will be lobbying to keep New Hampshire’s Primary first in the nation. Price resigned as Iowa Democratic Party chairman shortly after technology failures led to delayed reporting of the 2020 Iowa Caucus results.
