South Iowa News

State Rep. Ras Smith is seeking the Democratic nomination for the right to challenge Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds in next year’s gubernatorial election. 

The east Waterloo native was elected to the Iowa State House in 2016, according to a campaign website, running to bring leadership based on his lived experiences to the Capitol. 

“As the ranking member of the Education committee and founding member and chair of the Legislative Black Caucus, I work to bridge division, improve quality of life and empower Iowans," he said on the campaign website. 

Smith told the Quad City Times he wants to build a more inclusive Iowa, and noted that with newly enacted voter restrictions, Iowa today is nothing like the state his grandmother moved to in 1957 to escape a sharecropping plantation in Mississippi. It is that life history Smith will bring to issues such as school vouchers, mask mandates and the economy, according to his campaign website. 

Smith’s mother served in the military and became a pastor, serving at the family’s local church. His father worked for 40 years on an assembly line in a John Deere facility, according to the campaign website.

Smith joins fellow Democrats Deidre DeJear, a Des Moines business owner, along with Paul Dahl and Joshua Kuhn-McRoberts in the race to challenge Reynolds next fall, according to the Quad City Times.