Politics

Why Democrats are betting big on a buck hunter

Published

3 months ago

March 21, 2026

DES MOINES — Rob Sand got a hero’s welcome at a state deer hunting expo at the Iowa Events Center on a recent March weekend.

The state’s lone Democratic statewide elected official, and Democrats’ hope for flipping the governor’s mansion for the first time in 16 years, could barely make it through the Sunday morning sea of camo-wearing, venison jerky-chomping, Busch Light tallboy-nursing fellow hunters as more than a dozen people stopped and congratulated him.

But it wasn’t because of his politics. If anything, it was in spite of them.

“Rob, heckuva buck!” said one passerby.

Sand was at the annual Iowa Deer Classic to enter a Green gross-scoring 209-inch buck he’d tagged earlier this season. Photos of the deer have proliferated on Trophy Bucks of Iowa and other Facebook hunting groups across the state.

“Mr. 200!” said Levi Schmitz, a Trump-voting Republican who nonetheless plans to back Sand.

“You got me,” the 43-year-old state auditor responded with a grin.

As Democrats across the map continue to hunt for paths out of the metaphorical wilderness, Sand is betting that his own path to the governor’s mansion runs through his familiarity in the literal wilderness.

Sand represents the kind of candidate Democrats have long sought to win on tough red terrain: an inarguably of-the-place contender whose persona and bio can help sell political views that have become a tough pitch in places where many hear “Democrat” and picture coastal elites. Iowa, a swing state through 2012, moved hard right in the Trump years as Democrats increasingly struggled to connect.

Here, Republicans have taken advantage of the culture wars in a big way for years. Retiring Sen. Joni Ernst first won in 2014 by running hard on her pig-farming, military vet bio and painting her attorney opponent as an effete outsider.

Sand doesn’t run from some of his more liberal views. But like many other Democrats running this year, he’s banking that his local cultural cred will make him tougher for Republicans to caricature as a not-like-us coastal outsider.The day the expo kicked off, the avid bow hunter and fisherman’s campaign launched a “Hunting With Rob” microsite that extolls the rugged Iowa way of life. “For the first time in Iowa history, hunters, sportsmen, conservationists, and outdoor enthusiasts alike will finally have an ally in the governor’s office,” it reads.

Rob Sand engages with fellow hunters at the Iowa Deer Classic.

In a state where the first day of deer season is an unofficial holiday, Sand’s strategy to center his culturally midwestern hobby rather than his Democratic brand was on full display. He dropped $30 on a glove for removing burrs, $35 on a tool that keeps hunting bows level and $69 on MAXX Step Aiders for climbing trees. And the branding appeared to be working.

“I’m super-Republican, but you got my vote,” said Tom Buckroyd, a hunter from a small community near Marshalltown wearing a “Crossbows Are Gay” T-shirt who spent roughly 20 minutes talking to Sand about hunting.

As he picked at a free sample of barbecue venison jerky on a toothpick, Sand said he wasn’t surprised by his warm reception.

“Number one, it just means I shot a huge buck this year,” he told Blue Light News. “But number two, I go back to culture. And we have this stupid, broken, two-choice political system. … And we are told stories about who can be right in either party. And when you find someone that’s in a party, but then also doesn’t fit that story, I think for a lot of people that is a sign of realness or a sign of authenticity about who they are.”

Since their bruising losses in 2024, Democrats have tried all manner of ways to rehabilitate their brand, from cursing more to growing beards to talking about sports. This cycle, they’ve redoubled their efforts to find authentically local candidates — and in some races, those candidates have emerged and caught lightning as they challenge status-quo Democratic candidates. Many are leaning hard into local culture signals.

Sand has hunting. Maine’s Senate candidate Graham Platner has his oystering and his Second Amendment creds. Texas’ Bobby Pulido has his guitar; James Talarico has the Good Book. Alaska’s Mary Peltola has fish. Democratic candidates who can win in tough places often get national buzz. And Sand happens to be from a state that — at least for now — still plays an outsized role in the presidential process. Could Sand be a surprise 2028 contender?

“If Rob wins, he will instantly be part of that conversation,” said Tommy Vietor, President Barack Obama’s former Iowa press secretary and a host of Pod Save America.

Sand is running as a hunting-loving, churchgoing, Casey’s gas station pizza-loving state auditor who has spent the past five years positioning himself as a fiscally responsible friend to the Iowa taxpayer.

There’s been little public polling of the race; the only public survey, released back in October, found Sand beating GOP Rep. Randy Feenstra by two points, 45 percent to 43 percent. But national operatives in both parties see it as one of a handful of governor’s races that could flip. Sand is unopposed in the state’s June 2 primary, though five Republicans will be on the ballot for their party’s nomination.

He entered the show room at the EMC Expo Center after attending a chapel service for expo-goers where he quietly scrolled a Contemporary English Version of the Bible on his phone, listening dutifully to the sermon about Jesus’ feeding of the 5,000. “What sort of kingdom work is He asking you to do?” the pastor asked

And what does Sand see as his kingdom work? “Talking about the evils of the two-choice system and trying to break down a system that inherently divides us and leads our leaders into the temptation of being lazy, and leads our leaders into the temptation of lying, bearing false witness against their opponents, because they know that they don’t actually have to solve our problems,” he said.

“In order to get reelected, all they got to do is convince us that they’re the lesser of two evils,” Sand continued. “And they win because we only have two realistic options on the ballot — and that entire system, to me, is just such a temptation to not serve people, to not do good, to actively lie, to spread false information.”

You’d be forgiven if you forgot Sand was running as a Democrat. That, of course, is part of the point of his campaign. Sometimes to salvage the Democratic brand in a red state you have to first savage it.

Rob Sand at the Iowa Deer Classic with his buck mount

But Republicans will be sure to remind voters a few times between now and November.

“He hasn’t really had to take very many positions,” said David Kochel, a longtime Iowa Republican operative who has guided multiple presidential campaigns. ”He’s going to be forced at some point to either disavow the Democratic Party platform, which is going to piss off progressives, or he’s going to have to accept the label of being a Democrat in Iowa and defend it. And it’s gonna be hard for him to do.”

Republicans will paint some images of Sand of their own. As much as he would like to cut the figure of a rugged outdoorsman, they say, he also spent some time in college modeling in Milan and Paris — photos that may well pop up in GOP ads. “I mean, it was a part-time job I had in college,” Sand said. “Catching chickens was my first one.” Catching chickens? “Castrated male chickens,” he clarifies.

There is also the matter of his election financing: His wealthy in-laws have dumped $7 million into his campaign. “Hardworking Iowans know the value of a dollar, and don’t have the luxury of having a silver spoon feeding them their career,” Iowa Republican Chairman Jeff Kaufmann said in a statement.

Iowa Republicans are taking Sand’s candidacy seriously. In an interview, Bob Vander Plaats, the influential West Des Moines evangelical leader, called Sand “dangerous” and the “best candidate” Democrats could run.

“He’s trying to come off as a more folksy, more accomplished Tim Walz. ‘I go to church every Sunday. I hunt. I’m the taxpayers’ watchdog. I’m gonna hit all the Republican talking points, basically, that I can,’” Vander Plaats said before stressing that Sand “would be way outside of where Iowans are.”

On the Republican side, Vander Plaats endorsed Adam Steen over Rep. Randy Feenstra, the GOP establishment pick and primary frontrunner. “I just haven’t been impressed with Randy’s campaign. I don’t think he has the campaign to win a general election.”

Sand practices a judge-not-lest-ye-be-judge approach with would-be voters. When he was speaking to the man wearing a “Crossbows Are Gay” shirt, Sand didn’t bat an eye.

“I know what that shirt says, but I’m not going to assume that he literally is anti-homosexual because his T-shirt says that,” Sand said. “I’m not a believer that lecturing people is an effective way to get them to not do a thing. Now, I’m open about my support for gay marriage, for the gay community. He’s probably seen me say that. … And he’s not going to hear me back away from that. So to me, there’s probably room for someone to wear a shirt that they mean as a joke they don’t actually mean to be negative.”

Sand didn’t win the Big Buck contest he’d entered. But as he took selfies with the men who had beat him, an onlooker from Exira named Jeremy brought up a possible consolation prize.

“You’re the next governor of Iowa!” he told Sand.

As the day wrapped, the lanky state auditor pulled his buck head down off the wall and, carrying it by an antler, walked out of the convention center — its taxidermied eyes fixed in a frozen stare at Sand’s potential new voters.

Politics

The politician who kicked his way to power

Published

29 minutes ago

June 19, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Britain wouldn’t have its latest likely next prime minister if not for soccer.

Andy Burnham, the former Greater Manchester mayor elected to the U.K. Parliament in a closely-watched by-election on Thursday, is expected to oust Prime Minister Keir Starmer as Labour Party leader in a matter of weeks. The sport propelled his political rise.

The pivotal moment of Burnham’s long political career came in 2009, when he was the Cabinet minister for culture, media and sport under then-PM Gordon Brown. Burnham was asked to return to his native Liverpool for a memorial commemorating the Hillsborough Disaster.

The 1989 event remains Britain’s worst-ever sporting catastrophe. Almost 100 Liverpool fans were crushed to death at a cup game in South Yorkshire, following a series of disastrous crowd control errors by police chiefs and stadium staff.

The horror of the day was compounded in the immediate aftermath, when police sought to cover up their mistakes by falsely blaming drunken Liverpool fans for the crush. The lies were amplified by a willing national media and allowed to linger for years; the city grieved and demanded justice. Bereaved families campaigned for years. But no one listened, and no one was held accountable.

Born in Liverpool and steeped in soccer culture, Burnham knew all this as he headed to the memorial at Liverpool’s Anfield stadium 20 years later. He was well aware how a young government envoy would be greeted by the crowd, still raging at the injustice two decades on. But to his credit, he went anyway — and was met with a wall of heckles, chants and protest songs from the part of Anfield, known as the Kop, where the team’s loudest supporters congregate. (The video of his halting, shattered-looking appearance is well worth watching.)

Burnham — until then a typical career politician in Westminster — has described the day as a seminal moment. He returned to Cabinet and demanded a new inquiry into Hillsborough. Three years later its report revealed every claim made by the justice campaigners — of police failures and a scandalous cover-up — had been true. The government was forced to apologize.

Burnham was widely praised for his role in exposing the truth about Hillsborough. But more significant in his ultimate rise to power would be the shift in his own psyche. “I always say that I took my first steps out of Westminster on 15 April 2009 when I walked out to face the Kop,” he wrote in his memoir, “Head North,” penned with close friend (and Hillsborough survivor) Steve Rotheram. “Things were never the same after that day.”

Burnham says his experiences dealing with the Hillsborough justice campaign shaped his view of the Westminster political machine, as an arrogant and failing institution which ignores English regions outside of London. Eight years later he would quit Westminster altogether to become a mayor in his native northwest.

Fast-forward to 2026, and Burnham finds himself in an enviable position — an experienced politician able to cast himself as a political outsider ready to take on the Westminster elites. (While Starmer supports the North London-based champions Arsenal, Burnham is a season ticket holder at his beloved Everton F.C., and is regularly photographed jogging in a vintage Everton jersey.) It’s a familiar narrative which chimes with disgruntled voters everywhere.

Read Jack’s Blue Light News Magazine profile of Andy Burnham here and Blue Light News’s full coverage of the Makerfield by-election and its unfolding fallout here.

Politics

The US-Australia face-off that isn’t happening

Published

59 minutes ago

June 19, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Who’s not here at Seattle’s Lumen Field for the Pacific Rim face-off between the United States and Australia?

If they’re following the match, the two countries’ elected heads — President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese — are doing so from afar.

Politics

The soccer boss in Mark Carney’s ear

Published

1 hour ago

June 19, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

VANCOUVER — Major League Soccer commissioner Don Garber joined Prime Minister Mark Carney on Friday to watch Canada’s thrashing of Qatar. Garber probably did not want Carney to enjoy the stadium experience too much.

BC Place is Major League Soccer’s most troublesome facility. The arena is old, was not designed with soccer in mind, and is owned by a government agency — the BC Pavilion Corporation, which also controls the Vancouver Convention Center — that forces the Vancouver Whitecaps to fight for dates on the calendar against concerts and other events.

“We want to be the ones that control our destiny, like every sports team does,” Garber told reporters Friday in Seattle.

The Whitecaps are now up for sale, and Garber is actively pushing British Columbia’s political establishment — including Premier David Eby and Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim — to find a solution can keep the team from decamping to Las Vegas. While the government has been willing to renegotiate its financial relationship with the team, a proposed new stadium would take “four-plus years” in construction, which Garber said was untenable.

“It unimaginable how long we’re going to be out of the stadium,” he told reporters Friday in Seattle. “They are very relevant club that doesn’t have a good business model, and you can’t be sustainable.”

Garber recounted he met with Eby while in Vancouver, and sat with Carney and Victor Montagliani — the head of regional soccer confederation CONCACAF and a close ally of the prime minister — during the match itself. Garber said he has placed a league official in Vancouver full-time to manage the negotiations with local officials over the Whitecaps’s future.

“We want to be the ones that control our destiny, like every sports team does,” said Garber. “It’s easier for business people to make decisions, a little harder for politicians.”