She is the governor of Iowa. Last night she gave the Republican response to Joe Biden’s State of the Union address. As Elaine Godfrey writes at The Atlantic, the GOP picked her to deliver the response to “show voters that some Republicans just want to keep schools open, lower taxes, and stop teachers from talking about critical race theory.” Here is a taste:
By selecting Reynolds to deliver the response, GOP leaders are hoping to send a message to America’s swing voters: Not all Republicans are off-the-deep-end election-fraud conspiracists, they’re trying to say. Some Republicans are nice, stable conservatives who simply want to keep schools open, lower taxes, and stop teachers from talking about “critical race theory.” The audience for State of the Union addresses is huge—37 million people watched Trump’s in 2020—and the speeches generate loads of media attention for both parties. So Republicans want to be thoughtful about their message. In a party that seems to be going full MAGA, GOP leaders “are doing everything they can to highlight some of the few Republicans that they can count on not to say anything insane,” Sarah Longwell, a GOP political strategist and the founder of ​​Republican Voters Against Trump, told me. Kim Reynolds is how Mitch McConnell would like his party to look.
In her response, Reynolds condemned mask mandates, vaccine requirements, and school closures that prevented children from attending in-person classes. Keeping Iowa schools open, she said, was only part of the “pro-parent, pro-family revolution that Republicans are leading in Iowa and states across the country.”
Reynolds has been Iowa’s governor since 2017, after Governor Terry Branstad left to be Trump’s ambassador to China. Her backstory is familiar to most Iowans: A college dropout and former alcoholic, she seemed to find her calling in politics, rising up the ranks from county treasurer to lieutenant governor to governor in just a handful of years. Republicans see Reynolds as a kind of fusion politician who can appeal to moderates and Trump fanatics alike, someone who won’t scare off the swing voters that Republicans need to sweep back into power in November. She’s friendly with the former president, and has received his endorsement in the past. But she hasn’t trumpeted his claims that Democrats stole the 2020 election—although she did sign a slew of new voting restrictions in Iowa last year. “She doesn’t go into odd or bizarre topics that strain credulity, and I admire that,” David Oman, an Iowa-based Republican strategist, told me. “She advocates for federalism and the rightful role of the states as the Founders wrote.” And right now her approval rating is 20 points higher than President Biden’s.
Read the entire piece here.