Our History

The Iowa People’s PAC was organized in Grinnell in the Spring of 2017 to bring together local voters willing to donate a small-dollar amount every month until the 2018 election, so that we could pool our funds to give substantial support to candidates willing to listen to grassroots voters instead of the big-money donors who usually fund our elections. We hoped to turn progressive candidates into winning candidates by helping them run strong campaigns.

By October 2018, thanks to the contributions of more than sixty donors, the Iowa People’s PAC had collected over $16,000, and PAC members voted to award grants of $2000 to each of three local candidates, as well as a $10,000 grant to Kayla Koether, a Grinnell College graduate running an aggressive race for the Iowa House against a Republican incumbent in Northeastern Iowa. The awards were given as matching grants for candidates to use as incentives for raising equal amounts of small-dollar donations directly to their own campaigns.

Jason Roudabush, a candidate for the local Board of Supervisors in Poweshiek County, was able to match the $2000 grant from the Iowa People’s PAC with donations from his own small-dollar donors and went on to run a much stronger campaign than he had in a previous election cycle. By winning in 2018, he unseated an incumbent and gave Democrats a two-to-one majority on the Poweshiek County Board.

Kayla Koether came within an eyelash of unseating the incumbent in her race. After a recount, only 9 votes out of nearly 14,000 separated her from her opponent, and the election was not decided until the Republican majority of the Iowa House took advantage of a legal technicality to refuse to count 29 absentee votes that had been mailed in before Election Day.

Koether’s campaign workers were so impressed with the boost they got from the Iowa People’s PAC that they have contacted us about starting a similar PAC of their own in Northeastern Iowa. A campaign worker told us that the money from our PAC together with Kayla’s match gave her campaign extra leverage in their negotiations with the Iowa Democratic Party, and the state party funded an extended TV advertising blitz. Out canvassing in the last couple of weeks before the election, they saw a big increase in Kayla’s name recognition because of the extended ad campaign.

While Iowa’s recent elections have been full of disappointment, we think the Iowa People’s PAC’s strategy of amassing small donations to support progressive candidates continues to be the right approach. We invite you to join our efforts to make local office holders more responsive to voters!