DAVENPORT, Iowa — Deidre DeJear, a Democrat running for Iowa Governor, met with a group of women in Davenport on Saturday, March 13 to hear about what issues are top of mind for them.
DeJear announced her run for governor in August 2021, and is currently the only Democrat actively running a campaign after state Rep. Ras Smith, D-Waterloo, ended his candidacy in January.
Her visit comes after Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds also announced her bid for reelection on Wednesday, March 9.
The candidate filing period closes March 18.
DeJear is a Drake University alumna and businesswoman. She previously ran for Secretary of State in 2018 and served as Vice President Kamala Harris's campaign chair during her 2020 presidential campaign.
"I'm running for this office, because I believe in the state," she said. "And I believe in what it can be."
She said she's focused on improving areas such as education and mental health, and making Iowa a leader across the country.
"This is a state that was once number one in education. I want to get us back there. We're 44th in the nation in mental health care worker availability. I know Iowa can do better than that," DeJear said. "We've got to reclaim our stature as leaders, not only for Iowans, but for this entire country, because we're good at that. We're better than where we are right now, and I want to see us live up to our potential."
Education and mental health are areas she said need greater investment.
"Because it's in investing that we're truly going to see the outcomes for Iowans," DeJear said. "All over the state, people think they're alone, barely making ends meet. People think they're alone when they have to work two and three jobs to put food on the table. People think they're alone when they have lack of access to health care and mental health care, but you're not alone."
DeJear's campaign is fundraising considerably less than Reynolds'. DeJear's $8,500 in the bank is a gap of over $4 million from Reynolds', but she said she's not concerned.
She said that more people were donating money to school board and city council elections last fall, but since then her dollar numbers are climbing and her campaign has seen financial improvement in January and February.
She's also not concerned about the recent Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa poll that puts her eight points behind Reynolds.
The poll finds that 51% of likely midterm election voters say they would support Reynolds, while 43% say they would support DeJear. Another 5% said they were not sure and 1% aren't in support of either.
DeJear said there's no other candidate to look for besides her.
"I'm here. We're doing this work," she said. "We're planning everything that we can possibly plan in efforts to be successful in November. So we've got a lane and we've got to use it."
You can find more information about DeJear's campaign by clicking here.
Iowa's primary elections will be held on June 7, 2022, and the general election will be on Nov. 8.