Analysis: Boulton, Hubbell lead early in crowded Democratic race for Iowa governor

After a long summer of organizing and campaigning, Iowa’s Democratic race for governor is coming into focus with two clear frontrunners and an emerging dark horse, according to party activists and campaign observers interviewed in recent weeks. 

State Sen. Nate Boulton and retired businessman Fred Hubbell, both of Des Moines, lead the seven-candidate field, bolstered by demonstrable organizational strength, high-profile endorsements and the promise of ample dollars to fund campaigns into the June 5 primary election and beyond.

“Nate really got a lot of attention when he first came out,” said Linn County Democratic Chairman Bret Nilles, who has not endorsed a candidate in the race. “Fred’s a new face in the race, but everybody recognizes the name.”

Also gathering support is Cathy Glasson, a union leader from Coralville, who has put key progressive issues front and center and begun lining up support from the party’s liberal wing.

“Cathy is really getting feet underneath her,” Nilles said. 

That view placing Boulton and Hubbell at the front of the pack is widely shared among Democratic activists and operatives contacted by the Des Moines Register, although several caution the race is still evolving seven months ahead of the June 5 primary and say the candidates remain unknown to many Democratic voters.

Some Democratic activists remain wary of declaring frontrunners. Johnson County Democratic Chairman Christopher Taylor politely sidestepped the question of ranking the candidates and instead offered praise for all seven.

"We have a really strong field with a lot of good candidates, each of whom brings a unique set of qualities to the race," Taylor said, diplomatically.

Boulton draws wide support from organized labor in the state and has framed his campaign as a reaction to the Republican policies of the last several years that have scaled back or privatized state services and curtailed protections for workers.

Hubbell has locked up support from many of Iowa’s biggest Democratic donors and offers a pragmatic candidacy he says will appeal to voters across the political spectrum.

Glasson, the president of the SEIU Local 199, paints herself as more straightforwardly liberal than both of them, with a platform echoing that of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders. Her campaign is receiving organizational backing from SEIU’s national political arm.

Even the Republican Party of Iowa seems to have settled on the trio as the race’s frontrunners, targeting the trio in digital advertisements and a stream of statements while mostly ignoring the rest of the field. 

Boulton brings organization

The Polk County Democrats’ Steak Fry fundraiser in September underscored Boulton’s success so far in amassing grassroots support, attracting endorsements and staging events highlighting that support.

Volunteers spent hours at Water Works Park ahead of the event placing hundreds of Boulton for governor signs at 10-foot intervals along the length of the main park road. Some 200 supporters turned out for live music and speeches at the campaign’s pre-party, most wearing navy blue campaign T-shirts or bright green ones highlighting his endorsement by AFSCME Council 61, the state’s largest public union and a leading funder of Democratic campaigns.

From the campaign party, they marched a quarter mile to the steak fry, shouting Boulton slogans and banging together Thunder Stix noisemakers as they went.

On the stump, Boulton brags that 13,000 Iowans have “committed to run with us” — a figure his campaign says is derived from the number who have donated to the campaign, signed up to receive online updates or indicated interest in attending an event. More than a dozen union organizations in addition to AFSCME have endorsed his candidacy, as has the state trial lawyers association and 11 of the 19 other Democrats in the state Senate.

The 37-year-old labor attorney, who was elected to his first term just last November, casts himself as the leader for a new generation of Iowans and the 2018 election as a battle over “the soul of our state.”

At the Water Works Park rally, state Rep. Bruce Hunter played up Boulton's role in leading opposition to Republican-led legislation passed earlier this year that limited union power and curtailed worker rights. 

"He became the voice of working men and women all over this state," said Hunter, D-Des Moines. "He not only said what this bill was going to do to those workingmen, the 180,000 across the state, but he also became the voice of what is right with working Iowa."

Boulton's agenda aims, essentially, to reverse those moves: to “fully fund” K-12 education, ensure “workplace protections” for employees, end private contracts for Medicaid, expand mental health services and invest in renewable energy generally rather than economic development incentives targeted at a single company.

“While Republicans have shortchanged Iowa’s future, we stand with a vision for the next 20 years in this state, a future that advantages all Iowans,” Boulton said at the steak fry. “Our future is one of incredible opportunity if we stand together, if we stand up for the things we value most as Iowans.”

Hubbell promises resources

Hubbell, meanwhile, is running as something of a centrist, emphasizing his family’s long entrepreneurial history in Des Moines and his own background as a businessman who ran the Younkers department store chain and held executive positions at the Equitable of Iowa and ING insurance companies.

He describes himself as a “lifelong progressive” but also a candidate whose “message is going to appeal to more Iowans than anybody else’s — Republican or Democrat.”

That message, whether delivered on the stump or in smaller group meetings, is measured and solemn but detail-oriented and knowledgeable. He promises to bring “experience, heart and unity” to the governor’s office, and pledges to “put our budget behind our priorities.”

At one meeting with about 20 Democratic activists in West Des Moines in September, Hubbell fielded questions on issues ranging from state education funding and the IPERS retirement system to the state’s natural resources trust fund and “master matrix” system for evaluating livestock confinement permits.

“I want to put the state’s budget behind, first, education; second, health care; and third, getting incomes rising,” he said. 

West Des Moines Democrat Julie Hale saw Hubbell at that meeting and approached him afterward to say she wanted to volunteer on his campaign. In an interview, she said she believes he's simply the most electable candidate in the field. 

"I just think he’s going to be more appealing across a wider range of voters,” Hale said.  "I’m a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat, but I think we have to start looking at being more attractive to other people.”

Essential, too, to Hubbell’s pitch is the promise that he, perhaps uniquely among candidates in the field, will have the money to compete in a general election campaign against Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds.

In one of his first press statements as a declared candidate, Hubbell announced back in July that he’d raised more than $1 million from individual Iowa donors.

And on top of that is his personal wealth as a former international insurance executive and scion of the Hubbell family, one of the most wealthy and prominent in Des Moines history.

Exactly how much Hubbell and other candidates have raised won’t be known until January, when they all must file finance reports with the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board.

At that meeting in West Des Moines, Hubbell was asked directly how he and other Democrats could compete financially with Republicans. He didn’t hesitate to note his own resources and those of other wealthy Iowans backing him.

“I am not going to be a candidate who starts negative advertising. I will not do that; they will," he said. "But our campaign will have the resources and the flexibility and adaptability to respond.”

In a subsequent interview with the Register, Hubbell emphasized his efforts to engage grassroots supporters but acknowledged much of the campaign will be self-funded.

“At the end of the day, you know, Fred and Charlotte will be the biggest contributor to our campaign,” he said, referring to himself and his wife. “We’re not hiding that. But we want as much support as we can find because that’s what it’s going to take for Democrats to be successful.”

In the clearest demonstration yet of the resources he'll bring to the race, Hubbell began airing TV ads statewide in October. The buy is in the "six-figures," his campaign said. 

Glasson runs left

Where Boulton and Hubbell have centered their arguments on economic challenges and social-service shortcomings in Iowa, Glasson has taken a broader view. She favors rapidly phasing in a $15 hourly minimum wage and speaks at nearly every campaign stop about providing universal, single-payer health insurance — typically viewed as a federal issue.

She backs not only restoring public-sector union rights curtailed by the Legislature this year, but also further steps to allow public- and private-sector workers to unionize in Iowa. On water pollution, she promises a “moratorium” on what she calls “factory farms” until water quality measures improve.

Underscoring her position as the progressive choice in the gubernatorial field, Glasson has been endorsed by two liberal advocacy groups: the national Progressive Change Campaign Committee and the Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement Action Fund.

“Cathy Glasson is a lot like us: She’s a fighter, willing to jump in and make a difference," CCI Action President Barb Kalbach said in a speech announcing the endorsement. "Cathy Glasson has a clear position on the issues that mean most to us.” 

Immediately after accepting the group's endorsement, Glasson traveled by bus with 30 or so CCI activists for a protest at an Ankeny Burger King. Glasson read a portion of a letter demanding the reinstatement of an employee who was fired after working to unionize food service workers and later carried a bullhorn as the group picketed along Ankeny’s Delaware Avenue commercial strip.

Iowa voters are looking for a bolder message taking on economic inequality and corporate power, Glasson argues.

“They want us to lean in. They want us to speak out. They want us to stand up,” Glasson said at the steak fry last month. “They want bold, progressive solutions to the challenges we face. They don’t want half measures. They don’t want tinkering around the edges.”

Four more candidates 

The remaining four Democratic candidates in the race — Andy McGuire, Jon Neiderbach, John Norris and Ross Wilburn — have been campaigning to varying degrees of intensity across the state. 

Like Glasson, Norris has positioned himself in the early months of the race as a progressive champion, peppering his stump speech with references to marching with labor activist Cesar Chavez and iconic liberal U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone, running Jesse Jackson’s 1988 Iowa caucuses campaign and serving as an aide to former Iowa U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin.

Several activists around the state described him as pursuing a rural-focused campaign aimed at winning votes beyond the party strongholds of Polk, Linn and Johnson counties.

“John Norris has been doing the rural outreach ..." Carroll County Democratic Chairman Tim Tracy said. "I’ll warn them now: if they want people to get excited about electing Democrats, then they better get out to rural Iowa and they better have a good message when they come.”

McGuire, a former chairwoman of the Iowa Democratic Party, with professional experience as a physician and insurance executive, has put health care at the center of her campaign.

Her message to voters often emphasizes her opposition to private management of the state’s Medicaid program and calls for improved access to mental health services across the state. She promises to renew state funding for Planned Parenthood women’s health clinics on her “very first day” in office.

Wilburn, a former Iowa City mayor, and Neiderbach, a former Des Moines School Board president, have announced candidacies and regularly appear at party events. Neither, as yet, is widely seen as organizationally or financially competitive.