(C) Iowa Capital Dispatch
This story was originally published by Iowa Capital Dispatch and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .



Democrat Mike Zimmer wins Iowa Senate special election • Iowa Capital Dispatch [1]

['Robin Opsahl', 'Ashley Murray', 'Brooklyn Draisey', 'More From Author', '- January', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar']

Date: 2025-01-29

Democrat Mike Zimmer is the newest Iowa senator, flipping the Senate District 35 seat in Tuesday’s special election.

Zimmer won with 52% of the vote to Republican Katie Whittington’s 48%, according to unofficial results published by the Iowa Secretary of State. The special election was called to replace Lt. Gov. Chris Cournoyer in the Iowa Senate, who resigned after accepting the lieutenant governor position in December.

Cournoyer, a Republican, won her 2022 reelection with 61% of the vote, and President Donald Trump won the district in the 2024 general election by a 21-point margin against Vice President Kamala Harris. Republicans will maintain their trifecta control at the Iowa Capitol — with 34-16 supermajority in the Iowa Senate after Zimmer is sworn into office and 67-33 supermajority in the House — but Democrats said the results show discontent with GOP leadership.

Senate Minority Leader Janice Weiner said in a statement that Zimmer’s special election victory “is a clear rejection of the Republican agenda led by Kim Reynolds and the Senate Republicans that have failed Iowans.”

“Mike ran on a platform to help working Iowans get ahead, support public schools and teachers, and help lower the cost of living,” Weiner said. “This win shows that when Democrats fight for Iowa families, we can win anywhere. This is a victory for Iowans.”

Heather Williams, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, the statehouse campaign arm of the Democratic Party, said Tuesday the victory in a district where Trump won by a large margin shows Democrats have a strong path forward in the aftermath of major GOP wins in the 2024 election.

“This earthquake victory in Iowa puts Republicans across the country on notice,” Williams said in a statement. “… Tonight’s win marks the first flip of the cycle and builds on key majority-making wins in Virginia earlier this month. The DLCC is starting the new cycle strong just a month into 2025 – from battlegrounds to Republican territory. We have dozens more special elections on the horizon – we’re only just getting started.”

Zimmer, the president of the Central DeWitt School Board, will serve out the remainder of Cournoyer’s term through 2026. He thanked voters in Senate District 35, an area covering Clinton County and parts of Scott and Jackson counties, for electing him to the position.

“I‘m looking forward to working on behalf of the people of Eastern Iowa to help working Iowans get ahead, support our public schools and teachers, and help lower the cost of living,” he said.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2025/01/29/democrat-mike-zimmer-wins-iowa-senate-special-election/

Published and (C) by Iowa Capital Dispatch
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-ND-NC 4.0.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/iowacapitaldispatch/