(Radio Iowa) A Democrat who has worked behind the scenes on many campaigns has launched her own campaign for governor. Julie Stauch of West Des Moines says Iowans are disgusted by the state’s elected leaders.  “Everything’s really broken and it needs to be fixed and I’m a problem solver. It’s what I’ve done in everything I do,” Stauch told Radio Iowa. “…We have a governor and a legislature that for the last at least seven years and maybe 15 think their jobs is to create problems for the people of Iowa and I want to come in and solve problems for the people of Iowa.” Stauch was the Iowa political director for Pete Buttigieg’s 2020 Iowa Caucus campaign and the campaign manager for Mike Franken’s U-S Senate campaign in 2022. She has posted a resume and cover letter online to mark the start of her own campaign. Stauch says voters do not trust either party right now and she’s promising to be a careful listener.

“They want the candidate to hear them and that’s what’s not going on,” Staunch said. “and so I’m planning to be on the road a lot, to be out there to hear the people of Iowa and my motivation is to understand what they want and to then go to work, just like any of the clients that I’ve had, and help solve the problems that are most important to them.” Stauch says she’s drawn on her past experience as an elementary school teacher to think about the kind of meetings she’ll host over the next several months. She plans to hand out worksheets and have audiences break out into discussion groups to review the state’s top issues. Stauch will be competing against State Auditor Rob Sand for the Democratic Party’s nomination for governor.

Democrat candidate for IA Governor, Julie Stauch

Sand, who launched his campaign three weeks ago, raised eight million dollars last year and over two-million dollars from donors in all 99 counties during the first day he was officially a candidate for governor. Stauch says that’s not an obstacle for her campaign. “Right now, I think his money is his message,” Staunch told Radio Iowa. Sand’s wife and her parents donated about seven MILLION to his campaign in the past year. “Let me be clear, there are no millionaires in my family, so I can’t raise money quickly, but I’m going to raise money and I’m going use it in a different way than campaigns have been traditionally been using it,” Stauch says. “…Stay tuned America or stay tuned Iowa and see how that all turns out.”

Stauch says as governor, she’d lead Iowa to address Iowa’s cancer crisis and water quality issues, repeal Iowa’s Education Savings Account program that provides state funding for private school tuition and focus on women’s reproductive health. Over a decade ago Stauch was chief public affairs officer for Planned Parenthood of the Heartland. Stauch says the state should ban the use of eminent domain to seize private land for a private company like Summit Carbon Solutions.