Jon Green – former mayor of Lone Tree known to many locals as a Sanders-wing Democrat wearing a cowboy hat – won the Democratic nomination for Johnson County Supervisor. Sanders even endorsed him. And then he defeated Phil Hemingway for the special election victory.
I briefly mentioned Green last month in a post about the perils facing Iowa Democrats in the 2020s. In short, I think the Democrats stand little chance to win statewide the rest of this decade. Why? National demographic changes in voting leave them with a base that’s too small to win. I argued that Iowa Democrats should, in response, re-imagine and rework their base for the future. They should organize new voters and run new sorts of candidates.
Candidates like Jon Green. Or Stacey Walker, or Cathy Glasson. Were I to approach the topic in more detail, I’d suggest Mazahir Salih as a possibility. The point is that Democrats should run candidates who will focus on immigrants, low-wage workers, non-voters, POC voters, and other growing populations in the state of Iowa who don’t currently vote Democratic but whose interests align with the left.
So, how did Jon Green do? Did he help make the case that he could do some of these things statewide?
