Episode 22: JD Scholten

Bob's guest this week is JD Scholten, the Democratic candidate for Congress in Iowa's 4th district. JD grew up on his family farm near Sioux City and travelled the world as a pro baseball player before taking an unexpected turn into politics in 2018.

Without any political experience JD took on longtime incumbent Steve King, who for 15 years has been the face of white nationalist immigration policy on Capitol Hill. Scholten lost that race by three points but he gave King his closest contest to date, piling his underdog campaign into a Winnebago RV, visiting all 39 counties, and earning 25,000 more votes than there are registered Democrats. Scholten hopes to build on that foundation in his 2020 race against Randy Feenstra, who defeated King in the primary.

JD explains how his agricultural district has been hit hard by the trade war, and why a promise to his grandmother that he’d save his family farm pushed him to run for office. Scholten also discusses his choice to run a campaign independent from the national party and why that’s important to him.

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