National Republicans are trying to tie U.S. Rep. Zach Nunn’s Democratic opponent, Sarah Trone Garriott, to candidates linked to the Democratic Socialists of America, calling the matchup a “contrast election.”
Republican House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Republican National Committee Chair Joe Gruters led off a slate of Republicans who stumped for Nunn on Wednesday, Aug. 12, at a Westside Conservative Club meeting at the Urbandale Machine Shed.
Scalise cast Nunn as a “clean-cut” father of six and urged Republicans to boost turnout to prevent the election of Trone Garriott, whom he called “some communist.”
“What she says is bad enough. What she would actually do if you gave her a voting card — that’s what’s on the ballot here in Iowa. That’s the socialism that’s no longer going to be nebulous. It’s no longer going to be, ‘It’s over there in California, it’s way over there in New York’ with Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Michigan’s Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate Abdul El-Sayed, Scalise said. “No, it will be here in Iowa if this race goes the wrong way.”
Nunn faces a highly targeted bid for a third term in the Nov. 3 general election against Trone Garriott in Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District, which encompasses Des Moines, its suburbs and rural south-central Iowa. Elections forecasters consider the race a “toss-up,” meaning either candidate has a fair shot of nabbing the seat.
Trone Garriott is not a DSA member, and no prominent DSA members have endorsed her campaign. The moderate New Democrats Caucus in the U.S. House has endorsed Trone Garriott and she would join that caucus if elected.
The Democratic state senator from West Des Moines has leaned into her background as an ordained Lutheran minister, giving her crossover appeal that Republicans are seeking to undermine by painting her as too radical for the purple battleground district.
Republicans have amplified rhetoric tying Democrats to the most left-leaning members of their party as Republican President Donald Trump has railed against “hardcore, godless communists.”
It comes as democratic socialists and other leftwing challengers to establishment candidates have won a series of Democratic primaries in other states in recent weeks, including El-Sayed. He is not a DSA member, while Mamdani is.
Nunn drew a contrast between his bipartisan approach to lawmaking with Trone Garriott, attacking her votes on laws that banned access to gender-affirming care for minors, blocked transgender girls and women from participating in female sports and required students use school restrooms and changing areas that align with their sex at birth.
“I think everybody in this room agrees we should have an open heart and we should be there, both with parents and with kids,” Nunn said. “But allowing anybody to have that kind of legislation move forward is out of step with 80% of Iowans. And we need to hold this accountable.”
Trone Garriott’s campaign spokesperson Zach Schenkman in a statement denounced the Republicans’ remarks as “completely false.”
“Iowans know Sarah as the minister, state senator and mom who shows up for them,” Schenkman said. “They’re lying about who Sarah is because they cannot defend their record of higher costs and making health care unaffordable for Iowa families.”
Scott Bessent joins Zach Nunn, Republicans to tout One Big Beautiful Bill Act
Republicans trumpeted their 2025 tax and spending law dubbed the “One Big Beautiful Bill” with Nunn on Wednesday, with Scalise saying reelecting Nunn was key to ensuring policies enacted under Trump are left intact.
Trone Garriott has said she would support repealing the measure because of its steep cuts to federal Medicaid spending over the next decade, totaling an estimated approximately $1 trillion, but she supports the law’s temporary deduction on taxes on overtime and tips, as well as other targeted tax cuts for working families.
Nunn also attended an Iowa Bankers Association roundtable with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Scalise and House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith.
In the meeting, which was closed to the press, the group said they focused on changes included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, including tax cuts and the creation of Trump Accounts to help families begin saving for their children.
In an interview with the Des Moines Register following the event, Bessent said it’s important to him to get “out from behind my desk” to tout the effects of that law as they begin taking effect.
“I know that in 2025 or in the past year, Iowa lost 4,000 manufacturing jobs,” he said. “The year before that lost 8,000. And what we’re seeing now is a manufacturing renaissance because of this tax bill.”
He said he wants Iowans to understand that the “underlying economy is strong,” but drew caution from President Joe Biden’s administration, which sought unsuccessfully to reassure Americans that the economy was stronger than they perceived it to be.
“What we’re not going to do — what the Biden administration did — is tell people they don’t know what they’re feeling,” he said. “What we want to do is get the facts out there, get a positive message and tell people that it is turning.”
He predicted the war with Iran would end and gas prices would fall, and he noted that inflation eased a bit in July.
Nunn touted the work he’s been able to complete in Congress, including on advancing year-round E15 legislation and affordable housing.
“This is huge to have this level of support,” he said. “It’s also a reflection of the fact that I think we’ve got some really good policies we’ve led here in Iowa that now we can fleet up to the federal level.”
Whitaker, Nunn stress keeping America ahead globally
Nunn joined U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matt Whitaker, a native Iowan, for a wide-ranging conversation on Wednesday afternoon at Hotel Fort Des Moines where the two spoke about America’s “comeback” under the Trump administration.
The discussion focused on shielding America from foreign adversaries including China, keeping the nation’s technological edge in the face of electronic warfare and emerging military technologies, affordability issues and a rise in democratic socialism.
“Europeans by and large would prefer to live the good life,” Whitaker said. “They’re not grinders like the United States of America where we want to work. We want to put our shoulder to the wheel and really make progress. … But anywhere that socialism or communism has been tried and it has failed. Ronald Reagan famously said the problem is you eventually run out of other people’s money. And I think that’s got to always be remembered.”
Nunn touted his work in Congress on the House Financial Services and the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party and warned against electing “a cabal of socialist Democrats” to Congress.
“We have a real opportunity here, but we have seen laid bare in the last weeks alone a seismic difference in what I would call the old school Democrat, the Kennedy-level Democrat who wants to be great for their nation,” Nunn said. “Now it is a progressive, far left — dare say, socialist agenda that is going, ‘Hey, what am I owed by everybody else?'”
Des Moines Register Chief Politics Reporter Brianne Pfannenstiel contributed to this article.
Marissa Payne covers the Iowa Statehouse and politics for the Register. Reach her by email at mjpayne@registermedia.com. Follow her on X at @marissajpayne.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: National GOP, Zach Nunn try to link Sarah Trone Garriott to socialism
Reporting by Marissa Payne, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
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By Marissa Payne, Des Moines Register | USA TODAY Network
