116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Iowa Democratic congressional hopefuls pitch health care, worker agenda at Manchester forum
Three of the five Democrats running to replace Rep. Ashley Hinson shared their plans with voters on Sunday
Nov. 23, 2025 6:58 pm
The Gazette offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced.
MANCHESTER — Three Democratic candidates vying to succeed Republican U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson in northeast Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District told voters Sunday they would make health care more affordable, strengthen unions and push back on policies they say are squeezing working families and small farmers.
State Rep. Lindsay James of Dubuque, retired Army nurse and nursing dean Kathy Dolter of Asbury, and Cedar Rapids nonprofit cofounder Clint Twedt-Ball shared the floor at Mixteca Grill in Manchester for a forum hosted by the Delaware County Democrats and moderated Iowa Democratic Black Caucus Chair Al Womble.
The race is open following Hinson’s decision to run for U.S. Senate in 2026. Other Democrats seeking the seat include hotel manager Guy Morgan of Boone and former state park manager Don Primus of Steamboat Rock. Republicans running are state Rep. Shannon Lundgren of Peosta, state Sen. Charlie McClintock of Alburnett, and former state lawmaker Joe Mitchell of Clear Lake. Dave Bushaw, a West Union farmer, musician and former Bernie Sanders organizer, is running as an independent.
‘We have to have equity in health care’
Asked how they would make Iowans’ lives better, Dolter framed her campaign around what she called an “ABC Action Plan.”
“A … we all have to be alive and healthy,” she said. “Number two … we need to have bucks. We need to have enough bucks … to buy food, shelter and electricity for ourselves and our family members. And then C, we need constitutional freedoms. Because if we don’t have constitutional freedoms, we won’t be able to have A and B happen.”
Dolter said she would work to shore up Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, the Veterans Affairs health system and rural hospitals “on our way to universal health care, because health care is a right, not a privilege.” She called for a $17-an-hour minimum wage, a more progressive tax system, action on child care and housing affordability, and an end to what she labeled “the Trump tariff taxes hurting Iowa businesses, farmers, families and workers.”
James pointed to her eight years in the Iowa Legislature battling GOP-backed policies she said favor the wealthy and undermine public services.
“Whether that was public vouchers for our schools, whether that was stripping collective bargaining rights, privatizing Medicaid, a tax policy that … the bulk of the tax relief (goes) to those who make millions of dollars here in our state,” she said.
Listing Iowa’s low rankings in economic growth and wages and rising cancer rates, James said too many people are making “impossible choices” about basic needs, from utility bills to insulin to health insurance. She framed the stakes as “not just about policy failures … this is about naming the moral failures that are coming down from Washington, D.C.”
Twedt-Ball, a pastor who co-founded the Cedar Rapids nonprofit Matthew 25, said the first priority is affordability — from groceries to health premiums.
Drawing on his family’s experiences with cancer care in rural southern Iowa, he said, “We have to have equity in health care. It shouldn’t be that if you’re in one particular part of the state, you get way better health care than if you’re in another part of the state.”
Strong support for unions and workers
All three candidates pledged to defend unions and workers’ rights in Washington.
Dolter laid out a detailed agenda centered on four pillars: “protect workers’ rights,” “protect workers’ health,” “protect worker pensions” and “protect worker jobs.” She said Congress should pass the PRO Act “to protect the rights to organize,” fully fund OSHA, require employers to provide pensions or 401(k)s, safeguard retirement funds in bankruptcies, and ensure unions have a seat at the table in trade agreements. She also warned of “the oncoming onslaught of worker job loss being caused by AI,” and said Democrats must support retraining and education.
Twedt-Ball said he agreed with Dolter’s policy prescriptions and emphasized the moral dimension of labor rights, informed by his work organizing with poultry plant workers in Texas and North Carolina facing “horrible, horrible circumstances.”
“Where unions are strong, we have laborers that are respected, that are paid better and that have better benefits,” he said, calling for stronger enforcement of existing labor laws and a shift away from “an economy … built on funneling money up to the ultra rich and billionaires.”
James said co-sponsoring the Pro Act would be among her first actions, and highlighted past endorsements from organized labor in the state.
“I have stood with workers on picket lines every major strike that has happened in recent past here in Iowa, I’m there on the line with those workers,” she said.
Health care and ACA subsidies: ‘worth the fight’
Beyond the forum, the candidates have also been weighing in on the looming fight in Congress over enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies, which are set to expire at the end of 2025. Without action, many middle-income Iowans who buy coverage on the Marketplace could see sharp premium hikes in 2026.
In an interview, Dolter tied the subsidy debate to broader threats to Medicaid and SNAP.
“We need to … shore up Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, and then the VA and rural health care systems, because we’ve got rural health care deserts and maternal health care deserts on our way to universal health care, because health care is a right, not a privilege,” she said.
Dolter said “Republicans need to wake up and fund those Affordable Care Act subsidies, and they’re not going to do it, and they’re going to lose the next election.” While she said Democrats “had the right approach” in tying extension of the subsidies to the shutdown fight, she added, “I think they folded too soon.”
James criticized the shutdown agreement that left ACA subsidies unresolved.
“We see that just in Iowa’s second congressional district alone, 27,000 Iowans are at risk of losing their health care,” she said in an interview, warning that loss of coverage will push more patients into expensive emergency rooms and drive up premiums for everyone.
Asked whether Democrats should have held out longer, she replied, “health care is worth the fight.” James said that at the federal level, “we need to continue to increase subsidies and expand subsidies,” while tackling prescription drug prices and rising premiums.
Twedt-Ball likewise called the ACA subsidies “an important issue to be fighting for.”
“I hated to see them make a deal and not get the health care subsidy tax credits renewed,” he said of Senate Democrats. “Everybody recognizes that this is an emergency, that can’t be the end of the discussion, and that we better fight like crazy going forward to make them happen.”
He said that if he were at the negotiating table, his message would be that “people in Iowa are hurting.”
“You can’t tell me that we can give … $3.5 trillion dollars to billionaires, but we can’t find money for tax credits,” Twedt-Ball said.
He said he is open to “an income cap eventually” on subsidies, but insisted “the biggest thing is not to get lost in the details of it, but to say working-class folks need to have affordable health care.”
Tariffs, small farms and the road ahead
All three candidates said they hear anxiety from small and mid-sized producers facing higher costs, volatile export markets and pressure from large agribusiness.
Dolter called for ending “the Trump tariff tax,” breaking up monopolies, restricting foreign ownership of farmland, subsidizing conservation so farmers can “afford to do the right thing,” and offering more support for beginning farmers.
James said an updated Farm Bill should be a day-one priority and warned that unchecked consolidation “doesn’t just hurt the farmers; that hurts our small towns.”
Twedt-Ball recalled watching the 1980s farm crisis as a child and said he worries Iowa is “on the precipice of a similar time of getting rid of small farms,” driven in part by “these crazy tariffs that are on again off again.”
Heather Marolf, of Manchester, pressed the candidates to restore congressional authority that she said has been ceded to the presidency, urging them to “be independent enough to push back.” Decisions on tariffs and war powers, Marolf argued, “are Congress’s business,” and called on the next representative to “stand up to that, take those powers back, and then come have town meetings and be honest with people about what is happening, … but take your job back.”
In closing, all three candidates cast the 2026 contest as a defining moment for democracy and the direction of Iowa.
“America and the American democracy are on life support. So it’s not time for stories, it’s time for action,” Dolter said, urging Democrats to “flip the House, take back Congress, stop the Republican billionaire boys club machine and make America America again.”
Twedt-Ball struck a note of “ridiculously optimistic” hope rooted in his flood- and derecho-recovery work in Cedar Rapids.
“I believe that if we work with all that we have to fight the forces of evil in this next election, that we can break through, and we can bring light back to our communities,” he said.
James framed her campaign around collective action.
“This is our moment and our opportunity to grab whatever brick we’ve got to build a new way forward,” she said. “ … I’m a mom, I’m a pastor and a chaplain, and I’m a fiery redhead who is deeply persistent when it comes to making sure that our families have the life that they know they deserve here.”
Comments: (319) 398-8499; tom.barton@thegazette.com
Daily Newsletters