Increasingly, activists in Iowa City frame our city politics as a divide between two factions. I find this framing attractive, but ultimately unconvincing.
But I’ve gotten a bit ahead of myself. First, what are these alleged factions? And what kinds of politics do they bring to the table?
A Starting Point
Former mayor Jim Throgmorton published a book a few years ago that lays out a classic frame for Iowa City’s political factions. It’s called Co-Crafting the Just City, and I discussed it here.
As Throgmorton tells it, Iowa City politics consist in a battle between a largely discredited politically moderate, very pro-development faction he labels ‘Boomtown,’ a growing progressive or left faction, and the ‘Core Four’ faction Throgmorton himself led (see note at bottom).
After winning the 2015 election cycle, the Core Four dominated Iowa City politics in the late 2010s and early 2020s. It built its politics on social progressivism combined with moderate pro-growth policies. Its platform included an affordable housing action plan, a focus on balancing development with social equity, and a push for long term, sustainable growth.
However, the Core Four has frayed in the 2020s, creating a space for new coalitions to form. Many in the activist scene sketch out two new factions they see at play. But I find a ‘realignment’ interpretation better fits the situation.
Let’s dive in.
Two Factions…
Activists sees a divide between a ‘conservative’ faction and a ‘progressive’ faction. They place councilors Megan Alter, Shawn Harmsen, Josh Moe, and Bruce Teague on the conservative side, and they place Laura Bergus, Mazahir Salih, and Oliver Weilein on the progressive side.
This division simplifies discussion and clarifies voting. But it doesn’t work.
On the labels, none of the ‘conservatives’ is a conservative in any real sense. They flirt with the ‘Boomtown’ faction Throgmorton lays out – a topic to which I’ll return. But mostly their politics fall under some kind of moderate liberalism. And the ‘progressive’ label hides many key differences between the three councilors allegedly under its banner.
The core problem is that activists heavily emphasize ‘abolitionism’ in their framing. Bergus has introduced proposals to move unspent funds from the police to social services. Salih and Weilein support these proposals, while the others oppose them.
Hence, the 4-3 divide.
But the proposal is quite modest. It’s just a debate over how to use some unspent money. I support Bergus on this, but it wouldn’t ‘abolish’ anything, even on broader definitions of ‘abolition.’ And it’s unlikely the proposal, even if adopted, would lead to further steps along those lines.
That is hardly the basis for factions.
Any reasonable list of top issues in Iowa City would include, among other things, housing affordability, mental health, public transit, and the viability of the city’s government in the face of federal budget cuts and hostile state legislation.
On those issues, the 4-3 split doesn’t hold. On housing and neighborhood issues, Salih moves to the left of the council. But on city finances, Alter and Weilein show some differences from the other 5. And on mental health and public transit, all 7 support more or less the same progressive and non-profit focused policies.
…or Realignment?
Weilein’s election in 2025 provides a better frame. I wrote about it as it happened, most recently to introduce the idea that it signaled some kind of realignment.
A few things about his victory stood out. For one, he ran explicitly as a working class candidate who would bring a working class perspective to the council.
He’s not the only person on the council with a working class background. Harmsen works a job I’d call working class, even if most people wouldn’t. And Salih has held working class jobs, as well as the directorship of a working class political organization.
But most voters don’t see Harmsen and Salih as working class. It was never central to their public image. Most see Harmsen’s faculty job as non-working class, even if I think they’re wrong. And in Iowa City’s brand of progressive politics, voters see Salih as a black immigrant first and a non-profit director second, before they see her as a working class person.
In addition, Weilein comes from the actual left – not just standard progressivism. This – along with new (to Iowa City) ideas like expanded publicly owned housing, public banking, and social democratic framing of issues – shows the potential for a realigned politics around a social democratic, working class pole.
In opposition, I see a hybrid between Throgmorton’s Core Four and the old Boomtown. Some on the council – with Teague the most obvious person – accept the social progressivism of the Core Four but combine it with pro-development politics that get into Boomtown territory.
And so, I see a budding realignment around a social democratic pole and a Core Four-Boomtown hybrid pole.
Local Politics Defy Factionalism
The trouble is that this really only accounts for 2 councilors. The other 5 seem to make their politics somewhere along a spectrum from Teague to Weilein.
In short, the ‘two factions’ activist approach doesn’t work. And the ‘realignment’ is still in its early stages.
I’ll return to the point I made some time ago – local electoral politics are messy. In Iowa City, our elections are non-partisan and the issues defy factional divides. There’s no ‘good’ and ‘evil’ side, but there are candidates whose politics are better and worse.
Plus, it’s not just that there are candidates whose politics are better and worse. In fact, it all depends on the specific issue. Each councilor aligns more with social democracy on some issues and capital on others.
Even when the allegedly ‘anti-development’ Core Four was at its height, capital still had a dog in the hunt. And it continues to largely define the terms of debate.
Excessive pro-development politics didn’t go away with the decline of Boomtown, but rather it wrapped itself in the language of social progressivism. Nowadays, it often shows up in the form of YIMBYism. YIMBYs use social progressivism as a shield to promote various housing industry interests. And opposition to this perspective often comes from a cross-section of councilors who don’t fit into the ideological boxes activists set out for them.
That’s merely one example. And so, it’s not a simple world out there.
The District B Race
I’ll close by saying a word about the most competitive election this fall – the one between incumbent Shawn Harmsen and challenger Amy Hospodarsky in Council District B.
I think it helps fill out some of these ideas.
On the local activist narrative, the choice is clear. Harmsen is a member of the ‘conservative’ faction running against the ‘progressive’ Hospodarsky. With the progressive side down 4-3, flipping this seat changes factional control. It’s the turning point that will lead us into the glorious abolitionist future.
But I’d give a big ‘maybe’ to all that.
The Candidates
First, Harmsen ran for the council in 2021 as a person who wanted to continue Core Four politics. He emphasized, in particular, Salih’s innovations on the Core Four approach. And for anyone who’s forgotten, he was Salih’s campaign manager.
Hardly the stuff of ‘conservatism.’
Has he succeeded? His website has a laundry list of impressive Core Four wins to his credit. He’s gotten some things done.
But politics change, especially in a realignment era. These days, Harmsen seems to have moved toward the Core Four and Boomtown hybrid. He endorsed Ross Nusser – a guy who ran basically as a Boomtown candidate – in the 2025 special election. Nusser’s most prominent backer was the very anti-Core Four former Boomtown mayor.
While Harmsen’s politics don’t fit as well into the Boomtown model as Nusser’s, the endorsement represents the nadir of his time in office. It was a bad decision on both political and policy grounds and on electoral viability grounds. If he loses, this will say a lot about why.
On the other side, it’s difficult to judge Hospodarsky’s candidacy. She hasn’t laid out much of a platform, in contrast to Harmsen’s very thorough approach. Her background is in non-profit leadership, and she seems to be running in the ‘progressive’ lane.
In lieu of starting with a clear platform and message, she is kicking off her campaign with a ‘listening tour’ of sorts.
To me, this suggests the standard combination of social progressivism with pro-growth politics. When Hospodarsky releases a platform, I suspect it’ll be a (mostly) good one. But her approach looks more like ‘non-profit leadership’ than ‘working class politics.’
At the end of the day, it’s not the background I’m looking for in a candidate. I’d rather see a working class candidate who emphasizes alternatives to the interests of capital.
“But who should we vote for?”
Look everyone. I’m a socialist who wants to see the city turn toward social democracy in the short term. By that standard, no one looks ‘good’ or ‘evil’ in this race. Both candidates come off as decent people whose politics fall in the Iowa City mainstream. Both look like they’d fit somewhere along the (tentatively titled) Teague-Weilein spectrum I sketched above.
In truth, all 7 councilors in Iowa City are perfectly fine people to work with on issues. They all want to get things done, and the things they want to get done are more often than not the right things. Harmsen or Hospodarsky – whichever wins – will likely continue this streak.
And it’s a good streak to continue, even though it’s not quite the politics I’m looking for.
In other words, neither candidate is a comrade, but both candidates would make a fine ally on specific issues. And I’d be fully comfortable discussing politics with either of them.
I haven’t decided my vote.
N.B.
Throgmorton also describes a fourth faction made up of libertarian and/or far right elements. But this faction is largely irrelevant to local elections. It’s mainly a factor on specific issues or ballot initiatives, such as our repeated fights over whether to build a county jail.
