Issues

Here’s the thing: American workers produce more per hour than at any point in history. And yet, in inflation-adjusted terms, the typical worker’s paycheck buys less today than it did fifty years ago. CEOs make hundreds of times what their workers earn. Shareholders pocket record profits. And the workers who made all of it possible are told to be grateful for what they’ve got.

That is not a fair market outcome. That is a system that has been deliberately tilted, through decades of policy choices, to move money from the people who do the work to the people who own the company. And fixing it is going to require deliberate choices in the other direction.

My plan to raise wages and rebuild Iowa’s middle class works from every direction: strengthening workers’ power to negotiate, making sure that Iowa families keep more of what they earn, and ensuring that the workers who built these companies actually own a piece of them.

I will fight to:

• Pass the PRO Act to restore workers’ right to organize and bargain collectively without fear of retaliation or intimidation. Unions are the single most effective tool workers have ever had to raise wages — not just for their own members, but for everyone in the communities where they work.
• Raise the federal minimum wage — the floor has been frozen at $7.25 an hour since 2009, the longest stretch in history. That is a policy choice, and it is a bad one. We should raise it to at least $15, then index it to inflation, so it never falls this far behind again.
• Guarantee paid family and medical leave for every worker. No Iowan should have to choose between keeping their job and caring for a newborn or a sick parent. The United States is one of the only developed countries in the world that doesn’t guarantee this. That has to change.
• Crack down on wage theft, which costs American workers more each year than all property crimes combined, and which falls hardest on the workers with the least power to fight back.
• End federal road swaps that let contractors cheat Iowa construction workers out of prevailing wages on public infrastructure projects that Iowa taxpayers are funding.

I will fight to ensure that workers share in the productivity gains they create. American workers’ productivity has soared while their wages have stagnated, and the difference has flowed to executives and shareholders. That is not how a fair economy works. I will fight to restore the fundamental bargain: when the company does well because of its workers, the workers do well too.

• Pass the American Ownership and Resilience Act, bipartisan legislation that makes it easier for Iowa workers to buy the companies they’ve spent their careers building. Right now, over 30 percent of U.S. corporate stock is owned by foreign investors — and as Iowa’s baby boom generation of business owners retires, a historic wave of company sales is coming.
• This legislation would channel those sales toward the employees who know those businesses best, rather than to Wall Street or foreign buyers. Employee-owned companies are more productive, more resilient, pay higher wages, and stay rooted in their communities.

The workers of Iowa built this economy. They deserve to share in what they’ve built. That means a paycheck that keeps up, a stake in the companies that depend on their labor, and a tax code and a government that works for them. I will fight for all of it. Read my full Iowans Over Insiders: An Economy that Works for Iowans plan.

There’s a reason costs keep going up while Iowans’ paychecks are flat. There’s a reason families are struggling more than ever to afford prescription drugs, pay their mortgages, and put food on the table. And there’s a reason politicians aren’t doing a damn thing about it.

The system is rigged by design, and we have to end it. Corporations and billionaires figured out a long time ago that it’s a lot cheaper to buy a politician than to compete in a fair marketplace. Elon Musk spent over $291 million in the 2024 elections, and his net worth has increased by $579 billion since then. The billionaires buy the politicians, the politicians write the rules, and hardworking Iowans pay the price.

Since I was first elected to the Iowa State Senate in 2018, I have fought to protect my constituents against that system. I’m running for the U.S. Senate because Iowa deserves a Senator who works for Iowans, not insiders, and because the corruption in Washington is costing Iowa families real money.

My anti-corruption plan — Iowans Over Insiders: End the Rigged System — takes direct aim at the rigged system with concrete reforms to make sure our government works for us, not the insiders, the wealthy, and the well-connected. I’ve made these promises to clean up Washington:

• Enact 12-year term limits for Congress. Rotating the crops is good for the soil, and you’d better believe it’s good for our politicians too.
• Ban politicians from trading individual stocks. Neither me, nor my family, nor my staff will own, buy, or sell individual stocks while I serve in office. I’ll pass legislation to hold every member of Congress to that same standard.
• Pass campaign finance reform and overturn Citizens United. Unlimited dark money has been a scourge on our politics and led to politicians who pay more attention to their corporate donors than their constituents.
• Strengthen ethics rules and close the revolving door between Congress and K Street.
• Ban members of Congress from becoming lobbyists immediately after leaving office.
• Require full financial transparency for federal candidates and office holders. Iowans deserve to know their elected officials are working for them, not enriching themselves while in office.
• Ban members of Congress, their staff, and any government official with a security clearance from betting on predictive markets. No one should be getting rich using insider information – especially when it comes to our vital national security.

More than 680,000 Iowans have earned their Social Security benefits. They paid into this system their whole working lives. It’s not a handout — it’s a promise. And right now, that promise is under attack. DOGE has taken a chainsaw to the Social Security Administration. Wait times are up. Offices are understaffed. Payments are at risk. Social Security isn’t broken. It’s under attack. And I’ll fight like hell to defend it.

The Keep the Promise Act:

• Scrap the cap. Right now, wealthy Americans stop paying Social Security taxes after their first $160,000 in earnings. Someone making $50,000 pays on every dollar. That’s not fair. End that loophole and use the revenue to extend Social Security’s solvency for generations.
• Reverse the DOGE cuts on day one. Restore the Social Security Administration’s budget so your benefits are on time, fully paid, and offices are fully staffed.
• Require a full-time Social Security commissioner whose only job is making sure your benefits are paid on time — not someone moonlighting across multiple agencies.
• No benefit cuts. No raising the retirement age. Iowans worked their whole lives to earn these benefits. We are not moving the finish line.

Iowa’s farmers and rural communities are the backbone of our state, but they’re facing unprecedented challenges from corporate consolidation and failed leadership. I’ll fight for policies that strengthen family farming and revitalize rural economies:

Support family farms:

• End the tariff chaos devastating Iowa farmers and costing families.
• Fight for fair trade policies that help Iowa farmers compete globally.
• Break up agribusiness monopolies that squeeze farmers on costs and prices.
• Strengthen crop insurance and support beginning farmer programs.

Revitalize rural economies:

• Invest in rural broadband so every community can compete in the digital economy.
• Support renewable energy development to create good-paying rural jobs.
• Stop Medicare and Medicaid cuts that force rural hospitals to close.

Healthcare costs are crushing Iowa families while rural hospitals close and mental health services disappear. I’ll fight to lower costs and ensure every Iowan can get quality, affordable healthcare:

• Lower the Medicare eligibility age to 55.
• Strengthen the Affordable Care Act to lower premiums and out-of-pocket costs.
• Take on Big Pharma to lower prescription drug costs.
• Make major investments in mental health services, especially in rural communities.

Iowa ranked dead last in economic activity in 2025. The reason is not that Iowans stopped working hard. The reason is that a handful of giant corporations gobbled up the competition in agriculture, in meatpacking, in healthcare, in housing, and then used their market power to raise prices, cut wages, and squeeze out the small businesses that used to be the backbone of Iowa’s economy.

Last fall, at a community roundtable in Atlantic, I heard about what this looks like in real life. The price of a new fire engine has more than tripled in a decade — from roughly $300,000 to over $1 million today, not because of inflation, but because a private equity firm systematically bought up competitors, closed plants, and now controls a third of the specialty vehicle market. Fire departments across Iowa are waiting years for trucks they can barely afford, and property taxpayers are footing the bill. That is not a market outcome. That’s monopoly power at work. And it shows up everywhere, in what Iowa farmers get paid for their grain, in what Iowa families pay for health insurance, in what Iowa small businesses pay to fix their equipment.

I will fight to:

• Enforce antitrust laws aggressively. The federal government has looked the other way for decades while corporations bought up competitors, raised prices, and eliminated competition. From Ticketmaster to firetruck manufacturing, we’ve all been getting screwed. That ends now.
• Break up monopolies in meatpacking, agriculture, healthcare, and housing that are driving up costs for Iowa families and squeezing out the small businesses and family farms that made Iowa’s economy strong.
• Pass right to repair legislation so Iowa farmers and small business owners can fix their own equipment without paying a dealer’s ransom to the same manufacturer who sold it to them.
• Ban surveillance pricing at the grocery store. Iowans are already getting squeezed at the checkout, and the last thing they need is big retailers using personal data to quietly jack up the price on the shelf just for them based on their shopping habits, their neighborhood, or what the algorithm thinks they’ll pay. I introduced legislation in the Iowa Senate to ban this practice, and I will bring that fight to Washington. We must act now to protect Iowa consumers before this predatory practice becomes the norm.
• Support small business access to capital, especially in rural communities where banks have consolidated and credit has dried up.

Competition is what makes capitalism work for working people. Right now, we don’t have competition, we have captured markets. I will fight to change that. Read my full Iowans Over Insiders: An Economy that Works for Iowans plan.

Chloe and I pay more for our son’s daycare than we do for our mortgage. We are not alone. The cost of child care increased 263% between 1990 and 2024. For many Iowa families, childcare is now the single largest household expense — bigger than rent, bigger than groceries, bigger than a car payment. And unlike a mortgage, childcare doesn’t build equity.

That math doesn’t add up for a lot of Iowa families. Many parents, especially moms, are being forced to leave the workforce entirely because the cost of childcare wipes out the income from a second job. That tradeoff has long-term implications for lifetime earnings, and pulls qualified workers out of the labor market. Other families are stretching budgets past the breaking point. Two thirds of families with children under 18 are living paycheck to paycheck. Meanwhile, childcare workers doing this critical work are among the most undercompensated people in our entire economy.

This is not a personal failing. It is a policy failure. And I will fix it.

I will fight to:

• Make major federal investments to bring down the cost of childcare for Iowa families — so that parents can afford to work, children get quality care, and providers can afford to stay in business.
• Expand access to high-quality pre-K for every Iowa child, regardless of their zip code or their parents’ income. The evidence is overwhelming: investments in early childhood education pay dividends for decades.
• Increase pay for childcare workers, some of the most undervalued workers in our economy, who are responsible for the development of our youngest Iowans.
• Guarantee paid family and medical leave for every worker. No Iowan should have to choose between keeping their job and caring for a newborn or a sick parent. The United States is one of the only developed countries in the world that doesn’t guarantee this. That has to change.
• Support first-time homebuyers through expanded access to down payment assistance, favorable financing, and protections against the predatory practices that have pushed so many Iowans out of the market.
• Crack down on algorithmic rent price-fixing. Corporate landlords have been using platforms like RealPage to coordinate rent increases across markets driving up costs for Iowa renters the same way surveillance pricing drives up costs at the grocery store. If it’s illegal for companies to fix prices in a back room, it should be illegal to do it through an algorithm.
• Protect manufactured and mobile home residents. Over half of Iowa’s mobile home parks are owned by large, out-of-state investment firms. When private equity buys the park and raises the lot rent, they have nowhere to go. I fought for these families in the Iowa Senate, and I will fight for them in Washington including passing federal protections and a right of first refusal so residents have the chance to purchase their community before it gets sold out from under them.

Access to quality child care shouldn’t just be for the wealthy. Owning a home is not a luxury. I will fight to keep Iowa an affordable place to grow and raise a family. Read my full Iowans Over Insiders: An Economy the Works for Iowans plan.

Iowa Republicans have enacted one of the most severe abortion bans in the country and we’ve seen efforts across the country to undermine our democracy. I’ll defend your fundamental rights:

• Codify reproductive rights and restore abortion access.
• Protect access to contraception and IVF.
• Defend the right to marry who you love.
• Defend your rights to free speech and peaceful protest.
• Ensure all Americans have access to vote and our elections are secure. 
• Uphold a non-partisan and ethical judicial system.
• Promote proper regulation of technology and how our personal data is used.

Our immigration system is broken and the border needs to be secured. For decades, politicians like Joni Ernst have failed to fix this mess because it benefits the people who donate to their campaigns—businesses that profit from cheap, exploitable labor while Iowa workers get screwed. I supported the bipartisan Border Act of 2024 that would have actually secured our border. We can finally solve this problem if we:

• Secure the border – Hire thousands more border patrol agents and immigration judges.
• Reform the asylum process – Reduce backlogs and ensure legitimate asylum seekers get fair hearings quickly.
• Create earned legal status – For people who’ve been here for years, are working, and haven’t committed crimes.
• Hold employers accountable – Real E-Verify enforcement that protects hard-working Iowans from wage theft.
• Keep Iowans safe – Deport noncitizens who are a threat to public safety.