First look at the Sarah Trone Garriott/Jennifer Konfrst primary in IA-03
A deep dive
This original reporting and analysis first appeared at Bleeding Heartland and is shared here as part of the Iowa Writers Collaborative. If your email provider truncates this message, you can read it without interruption at this link.
Two Democrats launched campaigns this past week in Iowa’s third Congressional district, one of the party’s top 2026 pickup opportunities in the U.S. House. Republican Representative Zach Nunn held off challenger Lanon Baccam in 2024, winning by roughly the same four-point margin by which Donald Trump carried the district. But in the last midterm election while Trump was president, Democratic challenger Cindy Axne defeated another two-term GOP incumbent in the Congressional district anchored by the Des Moines metro area.
The Cook Political Report and Inside Elections with Nathan Gonzales see IA-03 as a “lean Republican” district for 2026, while Sabato’s Crystal Ball views this race as a toss-up.
I interviewed State Senator Sarah Trone Garriott and State Representative Jennifer Konfrst about their priorities and the case they will make to Democrats as they compete for the chance to face Nunn in November.
I’m not aware of any other Democrats seriously considering this race. State Representative Austin Baeth, who said earlier this year he might run for Congress, confirmed to me on May 8 that he will seek a third term in Iowa House district 36. Though there is plenty of time for others to join the field, they would struggle to compete against Trone Garriott and Konfrst, who are experienced candidates and fundraisers with the capacity to run strong district-wide campaigns.
NOT THEIR FIRST RODEO
Both Democrats have taken on Republican incumbents before.
Trone Garriott first ran for the Iowa Senate in the 2020 cycle. She challenged then Senate President Charles Schneider and won the open seat after Schneider opted not to seek a third term. When Iowa’s new political map following the 2020 census placed her in the same district as another Democratic senator, Trone Garriott moved to Dallas County and defeated Senate President Jake Chapman in one of the most expensive 2022 legislative races. She was re-elected to a four-year term in Senate district 14 last year. It was again one of the most expensive Iowa legislative races, and the one decided by the narrowest margin (29 votes out of nearly 41,000 ballots cast).
Konfrst first ran for the Iowa House in 2016 against then Majority Leader Chris Hagenow. He won that race in a district covering part of the western Des Moines suburbs, then fled to safer territory in Dallas County to avoid facing Konfrst in a rematch. She won the open seat in 2018 and has easily been re-elected three more times. (Republicans didn’t even field a candidate against her in 2024.) Since the summer of 2021, Konfrst has served as House minority leader. She’s stepping down from that role when the 2025 session ends.
Both candidates will continue to serve in the legislature and keep working their day jobs during the upcoming campaign. Trone Garriott is a Lutheran pastor and the coordinator of interfaith engagement for the Des Moines Area Religious Council Food Pantry Network. Konfrst is a Drake University professor teaching public relations and political communication.
Worth noting: Trone Garriott is in the middle of a four-year term, so has her Senate seat to fall back on if she doesn’t win the IA-03 nomination or loses to Nunn in November. Konfrst has to give up her state House seat in order to run for Congress; state law doesn’t allow candidates to appear on the ballot for two offices.
WHY THEY’RE RUNNING FOR CONGRESS
Trone Garriott told me she got a lot of encouragement from people to challenge Nunn, and described the response to her May 5 campaign launch as “overwhelming” and “affirming.” She doesn’t anticipate “making a career out of this. I have a job to do, and that’s to flip Congress so we have some balance in our federal government, and to make sure that the people of Iowa are represented in this moment. Right now they don’t have a voice.”
Konfrst did a lot of soul-searching after the 2024 election, she told me. The opportunity to serve in Congress is appealing: “My favorite part of my job is getting to help constituents and solve problems, and I’d like to do that for more folks, including Jefferson, where my mom grew up.”
The former Planned Parenthood leader Cecile Richards died on Trump’s inauguration day in January. Konfrst saw a famous quote from her that was widely circulating on social media; “It’s not hard to imagine future generations one day asking: ‘When there was so much at stake for our country, what did you do?’ The only acceptable answer is: ’Everything we could.’” She told me she looked at her husband and said, “Well, there it is.” Soon after she began laying the groundwork for this race.
Both Democrats have already rolled out some endorsements. Trone Garriott’s news release included testimonials from fellow Democratic State Senator Izaah Knox and Dennis Mandsager, a former Dallas County Republican Party central committee member.
Konfrst announced dozens of well-known supporters, including many past or present members of the Iowa House. (Not all of them live in the IA-03 counties.) State Senators Claire Celsi and Molly Donahue and former Senate Minority Leader Pam Jochum are also backing Konfrst. Her biggest get is U.S. Senator Cory Booker: he recorded a video “enthusiastically” endorsing the candidate who was an early public supporter of his 2020 presidential campaign.
A FOCUS ON ECONOMIC PRESSURES, RISING COSTS
Whereas some Democratic primaries are marked by ideological differences (for example, the “establishment” candidate versus the “Bernie” candidate), Trone Garriott and Konfrst occupy a similar political space. They’ve worked toward the same goals in the legislature and have voted the same way on all high-profile Republican bills. They aren’t trying to take the Democratic Party in different directions.
Their initial comments as Congressional candidates emphasized the same constellation of issues: the economic pressures families are facing and the need for good public schools and affordable housing, health care, and child care. In her May 5 press release, Trone Garriott mentioned her jobs at McDonald’s Wal-Mart, Red Lobster, and cleaning hotel rooms as a teenager and college student. She said she was hearing from Iowans “that life has become unaffordable and people are struggling to make ends meet.”
The senator told me that many things are connected to the rising cost of living, like food insecurity, access to housing and health care, the cost of higher education and the quality of public schools. She’s worked on those issues in the legislature, and the federal government “has a really important role” in all of them.
Konfrst said in her opening news release, “Too many Iowans are being left behind and they deserve better,” from farmers to kids to seniors who rely on Social Security and Medicare to veterans who get their health care from the VA. During our interview, she said that as she’s met people around the district, the economy is “right at the forefront of everybody’s mind.” It’s not just a talking point when people are struggling because of health care costs and worries about Social Security, Medicaid, or losing their job.
Trone Garriott has touted her willingness to take on the establishment in both parties, and in that vein is an outspoken proponent of term limits and banning legislators from buying or selling individual stocks. (Disclosure: I have long opposed term limits and long supported banning members of Congress from trading individual stocks.)
I asked Konfrst about those topics, because I haven’t heard her speak about them publicly. She doesn’t have a firm position. She understands the benefit of term limits as well as the advantages of “letting voters decide.” She wants to look into the investment issue more but “can’t imagine I would have a different opinion” from Trone Garriott’s.
STRONG ADVOCATES FOR REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS
Both lawmakers have spoken during floor debate against various anti-abortion bills Republicans have passed. I wanted to know where this issue fits into their Congressional campaigns. Some political observers believe Democrats emphasized abortion too much during the 2024 races for state and federal offices, and should have talked more about the economy.
Konfrst said it’s “easy to look back in time,” but “reproductive freedom is under attack. And it is something that most Iowans are concerned about. And so I think it’s important to continue to talk about that issue.” While “the economy is really important right now,” that “doesn’t make reproductive freedom any less important. And it doesn’t mean that women still aren’t going to die because of the abortion ban in Iowa.”
Konfrst said she doesn’t look at the issue “from a political standpoint.” She wonders whether women are going to get the miscarriage management they need. “Are women going to die because they can’t get care? That what really makes me worried.”
Trone Garriott had a similar take: “It’s still a really important issue for me.” She recalled that well before she ran for office, threats to reproductive rights brought her to the state capitol and motivated her to contact legislators. She explained that election campaigns and especially political commercials tend to focus on just one issue. “But for Americans, there are a lot of different things that matter to folks.” So reproductive freedom is not the only thing, but “it is an issue that matters.”
READY FOR MORE ANTI-TRANS ATTACK LINES
During the 2024 campaigns, Iowa Republicans spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on political ads with anti-trans talking points. “Protecting girls’ sports” and locker rooms were common themes in television and radio ads against Trone Garriott and Democratic candidates in most targeted state House races.
As Republicans in Iowa and nationally continue to punch down on transgender people, all signs point to the GOP using the same strategy in the 2026 Congressional races. Konfrst and Trone Garriott have voted against every bill targeting LGBTQ Iowans that came to the House or Senate floor, including the 2022 transgender sports ban, the 2023 bills on gender-affirming care for minors, school bathrooms, and “don’t say gay or trans” teaching restrictions, and this year’s sweeping transgender discrimination bill. They gave passionate speeches during some of those debates.
I asked both candidates how they plan to respond to Republican messaging on this topic.
They fully expect the GOP to continue the scapegoating. Trone Garriott noted that Republicans “attacked me on it in ’22, and ’24, and they will attack me on it again this year. You know, it’s generic. They’re grasping. There’s a lot of really important work that the party is not doing for the people of Iowa, and so they’re trying to deflect and distract.” She knows this issue “hits a nerve” for a certain population, so Republicans will keep saying “radical Sarah Trone Garriott, over and over again.”
Konfrst echoed that perspective.
We’ve already seen it, we saw it in the legislative races last time. I mean, it’s a distraction. […] Talking about trans people doesn’t fix the economy. And they can’t fix the economy, and that’s why they’re talking about distracting issues.
I’ll never apologize for standing up for human rights. I’ll never apologize for standing up to make sure everybody is treated equally under the law. And you know, I’m proud of what I’ve done to make sure people feel safe, and that this is a welcoming state.
But at the end of the day, if we’re talking about those issues, we’re not talking about the things that Iowans are really worried about, which is, “How do I pay my bills?” And I think they’re distracting from it because frankly, they don’t have a good record on the economy, and they know it.
CONFRONTING THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION
Both candidates have blasted Nunn for not standing up for Iowans. I wanted to hear their thoughts on what may be the biggest fault line running through Democratic circles right now: how can the opposition in Congress more effectively confront the Trump administration’s destructive, illegal, and unconstitutional actions?
In March, most Democrats in the U.S. House and Senate (including Booker) voted against a continuing spending resolution to keep the federal government funded through September 30. But a small group of Democratic senators voted for that resolution, on the grounds that a government shutdown would do more harm to vulnerable people.
I wondered how Trone Garriott and Konfrst would approach that kind of choice if they end up serving in Congress during the second half of Trump’s term. Do they think those Senate Democrats capitulated and betrayed Americans who were counting on them? Or do they agree a shutdown would have been worse?
Konfrst told me, “We’ve got to fight. […] Because that’s what’s missing right now. People feel like there’s absolutely no one standing up.” For Democrats who see politicians in Washington going along with what Republicans are doing, “I understand that frustration. I also feel that frustration, and I think we’ve got to fight. This is the moment to fight. This is the moment to stand up. And in that situation, we did not make the government almost shut down, Republicans did. And it would have been their fault.”
Trone Garriott said it “depends on the circumstances and the situation.” At the state level, even though Republicans have super-majorities in the legislature and the governor’s office, “they’re falling apart. There’s chaos. There’s dissension among the ranks.” She thinks that’s true at the federal level too, which may open up possibilities for “unique alliances.”
If elected to Congress, would they be willing to go to the brink with the Trump administration, even to the point of shutting down the government?
Konfrst said she “can’t say all or nothing,” because it depends on the issue and the situation. But people are telling her they want someone to go to Washington to fight for them. Some 83,000 jobs are being cut at the VA, where her mom once worked as a nurse, and where her dad currently gets his medical care, and “There is no one right now saying, hey wait a minute, this isn’t OK.”
Trone Garriott argued that the goal is “making sure that government works for the people, making sure that we’re not sacrificing the vulnerable or putting folks at risk.” When vital programs are on the line like Medicaid and Social Security, “we cannot let the vulnerable get hurt in order to try to achieve some policy goals.” She hopes that flipping IA-03 and the House will give Democrats more leverage to get better outcomes on federal spending.
GETTING THE WORD OUT TO VOTERS
As legislative candidates, Konfrst and Trone Garriott have knocked on thousands of doors. (Trone Garriott estimated she personally knocked on about 7,000 doors during the 2024 cycle, not counting doors volunteers knocked on her behalf.) But you can’t canvass an entire Congressional district on your own. So I wanted to hear more about how they plan to reach voters across IA-03.
Konfrst will travel frequently, which she’s already been doing as House minority leader. She mentioned that she spent a lot of time in Ankeny helping to turn two state House seats blue in 2022. (Republicans won one of them back in 2024.) She’s been to the Montgomery County Democratic soup supper three years in a row. She’s been to Greene County, where her mother is from. Getting out to talk to people is “my favorite part of this work.”
As minority leader, Konfrst has put the focus on other candidates or issues. Now she wants to share more about herself. Many Iowans who have seen her on TV don’t know she graduated from Johnston High School when it was “a tiny little school,” or that she went to Drake and teaches there, or that she used to go to a craft sale outside of Jefferson (the Greene County seat). “This is my home.”
Trone Garriott will still knock some doors and and will also attend events in many different communities. She added that she’s built a reputation and relationships over the last three election cycles, which means she has lots of people who can speak on her behalf and represent her to their networks.
NAVIGATING THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE
The third district covers the 21 counties that are red on this map.
The district has a Cook Partisan Voting Index score of R+2, meaning residents of IA-03 voted about 2 points more Republican than the U.S. as a whole in the last two presidential elections. Republicans also have a small voter registration advantage, according to the latest official figures.
About three-quarters of voters in IA-03 live in Polk and Dallas counties. So the path to victory for any Democrat is not complicated: you run up the score in Polk County, keep it close in Dallas County, and don’t get blown out everywhere else. Axne defeated GOP incumbent David Young in 2018, when Democratic turnout was higher than usual for an Iowa midterm. She beat Young again in the high-turnout 2020 election, then lost to Nunn by a less than 1-point margin amid lower Democratic turnout in 2022.
For those who want to dive into the numbers, I’ve created tables with county-level results from the last four elections in IA-03 (the two races Axne won and the two races Nunn won).
How would this cycle’s Democrats approach the task?
Konfrst said knowing the district well is vital. “You can make up for something unexpected in Polk and Dallas if you outperform other parts of the district.” She also noted that “we have a full ticket to support” in 2026: “Nobody gets anywhere if we don’t do better in Greene County, right? No one gets anywhere if we don’t actually start to build back in Wapello.” That’s the third-largest county in the IA-03, containing Ottumwa; it used to be solidly Democratic but has shifted dramatically in the Trump era.
I have a low-key obsession with Iowa’s mid-sized cities that are no longer Democratic strongholds. So when Konfrst mentioned Ottumwa, I wanted to hear her take on the erosion for Democrats and the plan for turning that around.
She’s been to Ottumwa five times already in 2025, “and I love it down there.” She has knocked doors for multiple House candidates in past cycles. As she listens to people in the city, “They just feel frustrated, and I think it’s reminding them of who’s been in charge, and who they’ve been voting for, and how it’s been working. Right? So give Democrats a try.” One of the Ottumwa events she attended this year was organized to spotlight Nunn’s failure to hold town halls.
Konfrst said Iowans in smaller communities have been happy to see her, citing Greenfield (Adair County) as one example. “They deserve for us to come listen to them and talk to them.” Polk and Dallas counties “are obviously critically important,” because that’s where most of the voters live. “But to ignore the rest of the district, I think, is a mistake and not one I’m going to make.”
Trone Garriott didn’t want to get too specific about her strategy. Speaking broadly, she said,
My strategy has always been, I have relationships with constituencies that just get ignored by everybody.
So, there’s a lot of voters who don’t come out to vote. They don’t vote in off years. They don’t vote down ballot. And I have relationships with religious minorities, and newer Iowan communities, younger people. And it’s important to connect with those folks to make sure they do turn out, and they do vote down ballot. And I’ve been able to do that in my other races, and so that’s an important piece of how I approach electoral politics.
CONTRASTS
Since these candidates aren’t meaningfully different on policies or legislative voting records, I asked for their pitch to primary voters who like them both and may have trouble deciding.
Trone Garriott leaned into the electability argument that was front and center on day one of her campaign.
“Well, liking people is one thing, but winning elections is another. And we have to win this seat. I may not be the only Democrat on the ballot, but I am the only Democrat in Iowa that has won three back-to-back competitive races in Republican-leaning districts.” She flipped a Senate seat in 2020, flipped a seat in 2022, and held a seat that Trump (barely) carried last year.
“And those were all terrible years for Democrats in Iowa, and I still won,” she said. “So nobody has the record I have. I have demonstrated time and again that I can win in tough districts, no matter what the circumstances are. That’s what we need in this race.”
To drive that point home, Trone Garriott’s campaign printed t-shirts with the message: “Our Primary Mission: WIN.” She’s been wearing one in some of her social media posts.
In addition, the campaign launched a digital ad called “Only” within hours of Konfrst’s May 8 campaign launch. The spot defines Trone Garriott as “the only Democrat to win a Senate seat won by Trump,” “the only Democrat to flip two seats from red to blue,” “the only Democrat to defeat a sitting GOP Senate president,” and “the only candidate to propose term limits” and banning insider trading. Near the end, the words “AND. SHE. CAN. WIN.” appear on screen.
I asked Konfrst how she would respond to that point, given that House Democrats have suffered net losses in recent election cycles. “I think people get a little sick of treating politics like a game, and looking at it as wins and losses,” she said, adding that she’s “no stranger” to tough races: “I did chase the majority leader away in 2018 and flipped a seat then.”
Konfrst also noted that “when things were terrible” in 2022, she helped flip two Iowa House seats in Ankeny. “In 2024, we held five Trump seats, which is nothing to sneeze at in a year like that.” (That’s accurate: click here to learn more about the Iowa Democratic lawmakers who were re-elected in districts Trump carried in 2024.) Finally, she pointed out that she led the campaigns for two Iowa House special elections this year, and in both cases, the Democratic candidates overperformed.
“So I’m no stranger to tough races. But I think what people care more about is, what are you going to do for me, and are you going to go and fight for us?” She’s excited to have that conversation.
Konfrst’s initial news release and launch video underscored her deep family roots in central Iowa, where she grew up and went to school. Trone Garriott is originally from Minnesota and worked in several parts of the country before moving to Iowa in 2013.
Was Konfrst suggesting that someone who wasn’t born and raised in Iowa, or didn’t go to college here, is less able to represent the third district?
“Absolutely not,” she told me. “I’m saying that that’s why I want to represent this district, is because I’ve been here, I grew up here, and it’s where my mom grew up, and it’s important to me to represent the people I grew up with. It’s absolutely not a contrast to anybody else. It’s a statement of who I am and where I grew up and what I think folks from this district need.”
As for her message to Democrats who like both candidates in the IA-03 race, Konfrst said,
Well, first of all, I want you to know that—and I’m sure that she feels the same way—Zach Nunn is our focus, and neither one of us wanted to do a primary. It’s not fun. We’ve worked together a lot, and none of it’s personal.
I just continue to say that this is a chance for Democrats to decide what they want in a candidate, and most importantly in a Congressperson. And is it someone who’s going to go out and fight? You know, I’ve got a proven record of standing up and fighting. And I’ve been across the district a lot […] and that politics isn’t a game. It’s about who you want representing you.
CLOSING THOUGHTS
I try to end every interview with the same question: is there anything that would be important for my readers to know, that I didn’t ask?
“It’s so easy to get caught up in the game,” Konfrst said, especially for people who love politics and talk about it all the time. “But folks are struggling, and folks feel unheard. That is the number one thing I hear. And if we can go out there and listen, and if we can go out there and get people motivated, then you know what? I think we have a really good shot to bring some balance back. Because overwhelmingly, people feel ignored and left behind. And I really want to demonstrate that I’m going to show up and fight for them.”
Trone Garriott returned to the theme of electability.
For me, public service is a calling. It’s not a career path for me. And so my public service has taken a lot of different forms over the years. I was a hospital chaplain. I was a parish pastor. I work for a nonprofit food pantry network now, I’m a state senator.
You know, I am hearing the call from my community that this is the time we need somebody to stand up. We need someone to win this seat. And this is the race that is going to make the biggest difference for the people of Iowa and our country.
And as a person who’s always looking for an opportunity to make things better, I know I have something really important to offer to this moment. And I’ve been hearing from community in my discernment, but then also today loud and clear, that I’m the person who can do it.
Final note: I don’t plan to endorse candidates in any of Iowa’s 2026 Democratic primaries. As always, Bleeding Heartland welcomes guest posts by Iowa Democratic candidates or their supporters. Please read these guidelines and reach out to me if you are interested in writing.
To follow Sarah Trone Garriott’s campaign: website, Facebook, X/Twitter, Bluesky, Instagram, TikTok
To follow Jennifer Konfrst’s campaign: website, Facebook, X/Twitter, Bluesky, Instagram, TikTok
Link to campaign launch video from Sarah Trone Garriott
Link to campaign launch video from Jennifer Konfrst
Link to Laura Belin’s full interview (by phone) with Sarah Trone Garriott
Link to Laura Belin’s full interview (over Zoom) with Jennifer Konfrst
I have deep respect and admiration for both Professor Konfrst and Pastor Trone Garriott.
Thanks Laura for the great in-depth piece on two great candidates. I could support either. But I appreciate your work to highlight their respective nuances to the race.