Jack Hatch, Joe Enriquez Henry, Peggy Huppert, Anne Kinzel, and Ralph Rosenberg sent the message enclosed below to members of the Iowa Democratic Party’s State Central Committee on December 18.

Hatch is a business owner and builder of low income housing, a former state senator, and was the Iowa Democratic nominee for governor in 2014. Joe Enriquez Henry is a community and Latino activist, and chair of the Southside Democrats in Des Moines. Peggy Huppert has been a Democratic activist for 42 years and has served as Polk County co-chair and a nonprofit executive staffer. Anne Kinzel is a policy specialist, former lawyer, and Democratic activist. Ralph Rosenberg is a former state senator, lawyer, former director of the Youth Law Center, co-founder Iowa Environmental Council and former director of the Iowa Civil Rights Commission.

To Members of the IDP State Central Committee, 

We all know this was a bad year for Democrats. Elections are about winning; winners get to make policy and law. Iowa Democrats — leaders and rank and file alike — have failed in this truism.

For Iowans, the results have been devastating. For activists and everyone associated with our party, the result is demoralizing, with a loss of power and influence. If we believe that our Democratic Party values can improve the lives of Iowans now and for decades to come, we must question what our Party and our Legislative Caucuses are currently doing. We need to first make the necessary structural changes to allow Democrats to challenge the Republicans. Anything less will keep us where we are, politically irrelevant and failing Iowans.  

Jack Hatch is a retired state senator and was the 2014 Democratic nominee for governor.

As a well-used phrase suggests, “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting different results.”

Our Democratic message was strong, and our attention to our deeply held values of equality, inclusion, and freedom was spot-on. But in Iowa, our organizational structure is off base.  

We lost seats in the Iowa House and Senate and lost two very close races for Congress. Without a strong party organization that represents our coalition, Democrats will continue to lose. This is not a reflection on our party leaders, as much as, it is a reflection of the organization at all levels. We can’t move voters if we don’t engage in a conversation, and we must reach out to them.

Jack Hatch is a former state senator and was the 2014 Democratic nominee for governor of Iowa. This essay first appeared in the Des Moines Register.

Iowa Democrats were wiped out of every federal office and all but one of the statewide offices while losing seats in both the Iowa House and Senate. This is the first time in more than a half-century in which one party controlled all of the state’s U.S. Senate and House seats.

The Iowa red wave happened against the backdrop of a pretty good cycle nationally for Democrats. Conventional wisdom says midterm elections are never the best barometer of a national mood, frequently producing a predictable backlash against the performance of the President’s party. The 21^st century has produced strong evidence in this direction, in 2006, 2010, 2014 and 2018. Tough economic numbers including high inflation and interest rates supported forecasts of doom for Democrats in 2022.

Then a strange thing happened. The political center held.

Jack Hatch represented part of Des Moines in the Iowa Senate and was the 2014 Democratic nominee for governor.

Grace Van Cleave has done a great job with her campaign to “Give Choice a Voice.” Iowans’ basic human right to exercise our own reproductive health care decisions is under the gravest threat in 50 years. We have an Iowa Supreme Court case pending, and a state constitutional amendment designed to clear a path for banning abortion may appear on a statewide ballot soon. After that, there may be no right to choose in Iowa. 

Who will represent us in this huge battle that’s coming?