(Iowa Capital Dispatch) Though Iowa’s 4th Congressional District is considered a longtime Republican stronghold, three Democrats are competing in the June 2 primary to become the candidate competing for the open seat in the 2026 election.
The district, which covers much of northwest Iowa including Ames, Sioux City and Council Bluffs, is currently represented by U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra, who took the seat in the 2020 election after winning the primary against incumbent former U.S. Rep. Steve King.
The closest election for the seat, after its creation through the 2010 redistricting process, was in 2018, when King faced now-state Rep. J.D. Scholten, D-Sioux City, for the seat, as he faced criticism for controversial remarks related to abortion, immigration and race. Republicans’ 3% margin of victory in 2018 for King grew to 25% in the 2020 election when Feenstra became the nominee. But Feenstra is not seeking another term in office — he is running as a GOP candidate for Iowa governor in 2026, where he is running in a five-person primary.
With Feenstra’s exit, several Republicans including former Iowa House Majority Leader Matt Windschitl and Iowa Tea Party founder Ryan Rhodes announced their campaigns to become the GOP nominee. But the field narrowed after President Donald Trump endorsed Republican candidate Chris McGowan, Siouxland Chamber of Commerce president. McGowan is now running unopposed to become the Republican nominee for the seat.
The field has not narrowed for Democrats. Three candidates will appear on the June 2 primary ballots: former state Rep. Dave Dawson, Ashley WolfTornabane, a stay-at-home mother who previously worked in education, and Stephanie Steiner, a retired women’s healthcare nurse.
Dawson is the only candidate in the primary who has previously held elected office, and he reported raising the most money — $34,874 — in the most recent Federal Election Commission reports from April. WolfTornabane reported raising $8,886 in the filing period, and Steiner did not file a report with the FEC.
The former state lawmaker, who represented Iowa House District 14 from 2013 to 2017, is also a prosecutor, according to his campaign website, has has received endorsements from Scholten, state Sen. Catelin Drey, D-Sioux City, the Democrat who broke the Republican supermajority in the state Senate in a 2025 special election victory, as well as a number of local elected officials in the 4th District.
In a statement to Iowa Capital Dispatch earlier in May, Dawson laid out his campaign’s top priorities as healthcare, investment in rural communities, and working to raise incomes in Iowa.
If elected, Dawson said, “I will fight to lower prescription drug costs, expand rural healthcare access, and invest in medical research. I will work to keep rural hospitals and nursing homes open and ensure mental health services are available close to home.” He would also work to “will push for policies that increase wages, support working families, and crack down on corporate monopolies that hurt farmers, small business owners, and consumers.”
In the final days of the campaign, Dawson has touted holding public town halls in all 36 counties of the 4th District, while announcing he would hold 13 events from May 29 through June 2.
“I promised when I started this campaign that I would show up everywhere in this district, and listen to the people I’m running to represent,” Dawson said in a statement. “We made it to all 36 counties, and now we’re going back out one more time before voters head to the polls. Iowa’s 4th District deserves a representative who keeps showing up, even when the cameras are off. That’s what this tour is about.”
WolfTornabane, in a statement to Iowa Capital Dispatch, similarly said some of her top campaign priorities were healthcare and raising wages.
“Publicly funded universal healthcare, like the happiest countries on earth benefit from, is the only way to pay every bill so we can keep our healthcare facilities open and to make sure everyone can go to the doctor when they need to,” WolfTornabane said. “Until we achieve this, I support protecting and expanding Medicaid, Medicare, and the ACA tax credits.”
She said she would support creating a new formula for setting a minimum wage that would “index each state’s minimum wage to the cost of living, which is already being done in several states, and we would have a minimum wage that is not only equitable across the fifty states, but also sustainable.”
Additionally, she said her campaign will focus on protecting democracy and the U.S. constitution. This “requires Congress providing the checks and balances intended by the founding fathers, stopping illegal wars, tariffs, violations of due process and more,” she said, in addition to pursuing longterm goals of making changes to the U.S. Supreme Court and campaign finance.
WolfTornabane has received support from Ryan Melton, who ran as the Democratic 4th District candidate in the 2022 and 2024 elections, as well as other Democrats who identify as progressive. WolfTornabane also held town halls in all 36 counties, according to a social media post, where she said Iowans’ top concerns were issues like water quality, addressing corruption, healthcare, taxes and education.
Steiner, who said she has visited all 36 counties in the district since launching her campaign in 2025, has chosen to hold many town halls virtually in the weeks before the election, saying in social media posts the online event format was “in response to hearing from community members across Iowa’s 4th District who wanted to participate but faced barriers such as: work schedules, childcare, transportation costs, or concerns about attending public political events.”
According to her campaign website, Steiner supports building a “universal healthcare” system through existing Medicare and Medicaid infrastructure, would work to support reproductive healthcare and voting rights which she said are currently “under attack,” as well as aiding rural Iowa and farmers by strengthening anti-trust laws.
The three candidates have also all participated in forums, including forums held in Carroll and at Morningside University. WolfTornabane and Steiner also participated in a debate last weekend hosted by the organization “Siouxlanders Get Stuff Done,” where the two candidates spoke on their support for the state’s public education system and criticizing actions taken by President Donald Trump’s administration and Republicans in Congress related to immigration law enforcement and funding cuts made through the “Big, Beautiful Bill” Act.
