Des Moines, Iowa (AP) – In a surprise announcement on Friday, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds said that she would not get a third term.
Reynolds, a Republican, has held his position since 2017 when former Governor Terry Bran Stad was appointed US ambassador in China. It was chosen again in complete conditions in 2018 and in 2022.
“It was not an easy decision because I love this state and love them to serve them,” said Reynolds in a video published on social media. “But when my term of office ends, I have the privilege for almost 10 years to serve as your governor.”
Your decision is the choice for governor in Iowa next year as the first without incumbent for almost two decades.
Reynolds said she left his office after years of her family, in which she supports her and now said: “It’s time for me to be there for her.” Her husband, Kevin Reynolds, was diagnosed in lung cancer in January 2023. His cancer remained in remission.
Reynolds, who had her start to politics as a treasurer in the largely rural Clarke County in South -Iowa, was less than 10,000 inhabitants, was the state’s first governor. She was elected to the Senate of Iowa in 2008 before it acted as Branstad’s running colleagues when she was elected governor of Lieutenant in 2010.
Iowa’s policy has changed drastically since Reynolds came to the state captain for the first time in the Moines. The state started the presidential offer of the former president Barack Obama and supported him both in the 2008 parliamentary elections and in 2012 and clearly supported President Donald Trump in all three of his presidential runs.
The Republicans steadily increased their majorities in the Iowa House and in the Senate under Reynolds’ leadership and gave them their priorities enough.
Reynolds did not send himself before national attention and granted a GOP reaction to the speech by President Joe Biden to Congress and as chairman of the Republican Governors Association.
It has the spotlight that goes hand in hand with the orientation of the presidents and caused a sensation for a sensation in 2023 by broken a long -term tradition of the governors of Iowa in the breed, Ron Desantis, neutral – and breaking with Trump.
And when Trump moved his second -term agenda at the federal level, Reynolds regularly emphasized conservative politics that Iowa has already passed.
Reynolds celebrated her work to make school selection in Iowa through the finish line and signed the creation of publicly financed educational savings accounts for the tuition fees of the students or other approved issues in 2023.
In the current school year, more than 27,000 students used the program that will be available to every student in the coming year. Reynolds’ proposed budget line for the accounts next year reached 314 million dollars.
She supports guidelines to limit the employ of bathing rooms and changing rooms by transgender students and their participation in sports teams to protect people who were assigned to women at birth. In order to confirm this, she signed a bill to remove the protection of gender identity from the state civil rights code this year.
Reynolds tried to make considerable efforts to reduce and re -organize the Iowa government agencies in order to rationalize the services, one of their top priorities after pandemic. This led her to say that Iowa carried out “Doge” – the Department of Government Efficiency of the Trump administration, which was commissioned with the government’s size and expenditure.
Since their last re -election, Reynolds has also described a uncommon special legislative session in the summer of 2023 to give Republican legislators the opportunity to adopt a ban on most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy. This law is now in force.
According to her announcement, the governor of the Republican leaders of IOWA came in, and many underline their success in the cultivation of Iowa’s workforce and the reduction of taxes.
“Taxes are low, cash reserves are full, our freedoms are defended, and the future of Iowa has never been brighter,” said Jeff Kaufmann, Chairman of the Republican Party of Iowa.
Now the first extensive area code for Republicans is coming to her after more than a decade of Reynolds and Bran Stad.
A campaign committee for Reynolds took 1.8 million US dollars last year and presented around 3 million US dollars in cash at the end of the year.
A Republican – a pastor and former state representative, Brad Sherman – had already said that he would run for the governor on Friday before Reynold’s announcement.
But Democrats who react on Friday said that Iowans were ready to turn the site.
“In 2026, voters will blame them for bringing our state in the wrong direction,” said Rita Hart, chairman of the Democratic Party in Iowa.
Reynolds said that she “has no doubt that Iowa and our Republican party will remain in large hands” and notes the “Foundation of a strong conservative leadership that will continue to serve this state well”.
