(Radio Iowa) – One of the Democrats running for the U-S Senate seat Republican Joni Ernst holds plans to visit 99 counties in 99 days. Nathan Sage launched the tour this weekend with stops in nine counties.  “The only way you’re going to be able to listen to everybody is by going to them, so 99 in 99 is to get out there and have these conversations with everybody and if we can do it by working a little bit harder, showing that we’re the working class candidate that’s willing to do this and drive across the state and have these conversations that’s what we need to do,” he says, “because at the end of the day a lot of these people can’t drive to Des Moines, they can’t drive to Mason City to see me, so I need to be where they’re at.”

U.S. Senate candidate Nathan Sage

Sage, a veteran and Mason City native, is the executive director of the Knoxville Chamber of Commerce. Sage began his U-S Senate campaign in mid-April and by the end of June he had raised over 700-thousand dollars. It was just 14-thousand less than Ernst raised during the quarter and more than the other competitors for the Iowa Democratic Party’s 2026 U-S Senate nomination collected for their campaigns. “I’ve never been a candidate before, so I don’t know what to expect, so the fact that we have over $547,000 of that money is $200 donations or less our average — our average donation is $25 — that is cool,” Sage says. “People are the grassroots, understand that I’m here to represent them.”

Sage spoke with Radio Iowa after an event in Warren County. He will campaign in Boone County tomorrow (Tuesday). Sage plans to end his 99 county tour on November 4th by hosting a town hall in central Iowa. The 2026 Iowa Primary Election is on June 2nd. Sage’s other stops this weekend were in Mitchell, Polk, Bremer, Hardin, Audubon, Monona, Harrison and Shelby Counties.