Governor Kim Reynolds was in Pella Thursday for a fundraiser to support two fellow Republicans in Tuesday’s primary. Reynolds has endorsed Barb Kniff-McCulla in her contested race against Incumbent House Republican Jon Thorup, and is throwing her support behind State Senator Ken Rozenboom, who will be moving to Pella’s district unopposed in the primary but contested in the general election in November.

In an unprecedented move in Iowa, Reynolds has endorsed several candidates across the state — many of whom are trying to unseat fellow Republicans, seemingly centered on opposition to the governor’s proposal to expand the use of public dollars at private K-12 schools through scholarships, one of the few priorities of her agenda that did not garner support in the 2022 Legislative Session, mainly in the Iowa House.

“There’s a lot of primaries happening with redistricting,” Reynolds says. “Whether it’s been Senator Grassley’s race, or some of the other ones, but I talk to parents every single day and they just continue to elevate their concerns about what’s happening in the school, and how they are taking parents out of the equation, and they are just very fearful of that.”

“We haven’t been able to get that across the finish line — that’s parental choice, so we’re going to try and find the candidates that support it and I feel like I have an obligation to find some kind of an answer to the concerns I’m hearing from parents, and I believe with all of my heart that this is not a zero-sum game; it will strengthen our whole education system.”

GOVERNOR DISCUSSES FUNDRAISER, ENDORSEMENTS:

Rozenboom has voted several times to support similar “school choice” proposals to the one that passed in the Iowa Senate, while Kniff-McCulla has indicated her support for the measure through a statement issued following her endorsement by Reynolds. Several Republicans have opposed the measure, including Kniff-McCulla’s opponent Thorup and current District 79 Representative Dustin Hite. They, among others, have cited concerns about having public dollars go to private schools and the impact of having families move away from smaller communities without private school options if there were incentives to do so, and what the loss of those dollars could mean for future school closures.

The fundraiser at Tamory Hall on Thursday brought in a crowd of well over 100 supporters.