Democratic challenger in a deep-red district shares priorities at the state fair

Democrat Ryan Melton started his speech on Sunday before Iowa State Fairgoers by showing support for Libertarian congressional candidates, who were challenged by Republican voters to keep them off the ballot in November. They claim the political party didn’t hold the required county conventions. A state panel will make a final ruling on the issue.

"I think the voters deserve as many choices as we should give them,” Melton said. "The fact that the Republican Party is trying to put a halt to that is awful, and I'll do whatever I can to help you guys out.”

The insurance supervisor from Nevada then highlighted what he considered the biggest issue facing the 4th Congressional District, which includes the western border of Iowa and the cities of Ames, Fort Dodge and Marshalltown.

"Of those 36 counties, the vast majority of them have seen really steady, massive population decline for the past 40-50 years, right?” Melton said. "And we've kind of crossed a number of threshold points now to where we're starting to see the severe impact of that hollowing out.”

Melton said a decrease in support for public schools, lower wages and a lack of mental health care — alongside other health care shortages — keep people from wanting to stay. He called for bipartisan solutions for improving medical deserts.

"We're seeing a lot of closures of our hospitals and a lot of financial stress when it comes to our hospitals,” Melton said. "And the other problem is you have a lot of residents in our 4th Congressional District that are struggling economically. A lot that are going through poverty. The problem is a lot of doctors don't accept Medicaid and Medicare.”

Melton claimed Republican Rep. Randy Feenstra turned down millions of dollars in federal aid that could have been used to help rural hospitals while his three other counterparts in the U.S. House asked for a total of $115 million.

"Every member of the House of Representatives in Congress has this opportunity to ask for community improvement money. Four years in a row, representing a congressional district that is struggling so severely financially, he not only has asked for zero dollars every year, he brags about it."

Maternal healthcare is an area where Melton said the U.S. Supreme Court's decision overturning Roe v. Wade will make an impact.

"Some counties do not have a single OB-GYN, and the lower the availability rates — we’re last in the country — the higher your infant and maternal mortality,” Melton said. "And, I would say our congressional district is run by folks that consider themselves to be pro-life politicians. I don’t think it’s very pro-life when you deprioritize and defund health care.”

Higher cancer rates also cause Melton concern. He said Iowa is the only state with increases in cases of the deadly disease.

"Last session, the Iowa State Legislature, instead of pushing for funding to get to the root causes of our cancer crisis and to begin the work to mitigate them — what did they do instead? After taking hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars in corporate dollars, they pushed a bill in the state legislature to absolve corporations of any legal liability for the public health damages their products are bringing to our state," Melton said.

He also discussed eminent domain and carbon capture pipelines, where he expressed concern about their environmental and safety impacts. He claimed Feenstra supported a plan by Summit Carbon Solutions because of campaign funding from the company's co-founder, Bruce Rastetter.

"This is why corporate money and politics is one of the most dangerous things about our current system. Randy Feenstra knows full well that his constituents don't want these pipelines. They don't want their land taken away. They don't want to have to sleep and work and eat and breathe on a ticking time bomb every day. But he can't do anything about it because he's taken so much money from Bruce Rastetter that he is hamstrung into silence,” Melton said.

Eminent domain was also a big campaign issue for Kevin Virgil , who ran against Feenstra in the June Republican Primary and lost 40% to 60%.

"He [Feenstra] had a challenger because Republicans are pissed off about what’s happening,” Melton said. "Republicans are waking up and realizing that their own party's leadership has sold them out to corporate interests, and they're much more open to a conversation than they've ever been. And they know that I haven't sold them out to anyone, and never will.”

Melton ran against Feenstra in 2022 and lost by nearly 40%. This time, he hopes his message resonates with disillusioned Republicans, undecided voters and Libertarians. Libertarian candidate Charles Aldrich also addressed fairgoers at the soapbox. Feenstra is not scheduled to address the public at the fair.