“A lot of politicians yap about making a place redder or bluer,” State Auditor Rob Sand said in an online video Monday morning, “I want Iowa to be better and truer.”
Sand posted the video to announce his run for governor. It was widely expected that Sand would run for governor in 2026. Of course, many people also expected him to run for governor in 2022. Instead, Sand ran for a second term that year, winning in what turned out to be a disastrous general election for his party. Sand edged out his Republican challenger by 0.2 percent of the vote.
“For years, Iowa families and communities have continued to fall further behind because our elected leaders aren’t focused on the issues that matter most,” Sand said in a campaign email on Monday. “I’ve spent my career fighting for Iowans — locking up corrupt public officials, violent criminals, scammers, and thieves, rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse, and holding members of both parties accountable. Now, I’m taking my fight to the governor’s office to serve all Iowans by lowering costs, continuing to make government accountable to taxpayers, and working with both parties to create more opportunities to help Iowa families not just get by, but thrive and live healthy lives.”
In an interview with the Des Moines Register published on Monday, Sand said he would focus on bigger themes at the beginning of his campaign rather than specifics and policy details.
“I care a lot about our culture,” he told the Register. “I think when you have a good culture, your culture can solve a lot of problems,” he said. “That doesn’t mean that issues don’t matter. But most people in their lives — and I would include myself in this — you know, you’re not necessarily thinking about what a 10-point plan is.”
In the interview, Sand discussed his history of working across political divides (“I don’t fit into people’s boxes. I never have”), something he has regularly talked about during his time as auditor. Sand has said he’s made the Iowa Auditor’s Office tri-partisan, by appointing Republicans and independents to senior positions.
All of Sand’s statements on Monday struck the same outside-partisan-lines tone, although only the “redder or bluer/better and truer” one rhymed.
Such appeals have been normal for Sand since his first run for office (“I’ve prosecuted Republicans and Democrats and will continue to ignore partisan affiliation as State Auditor,” he said when he announced his campaign in November 2017), but in his interview with the Register, Sand went further than usual in disavowing political partisanship.
“I registered as a Democrat, because in the state of Iowa, you have to vote in a primary,” Sand said. “That’s wrong. … I’m not a party line guy. I’m a right or wrong guy, and I think that is what is going to drive a lot of this.”
Sand has been active in Democratic politics since college. While pursuing his undergraduate degree, he spent a semester in Washington D.C. as an intern in Sen. Tom Harkin’s office. In 2006, he worked on Ed Fallon’s campaign for the Democratic nomination for governor. Following Fallon’s loss in the primary, Sand became the campaign manager for Democrat Denise O’Brien who ran for Secretary of Agriculture. O’Brien lost to Republican Bill Northey in the general election, but received 48 percent of the vote.
Sand’s first experience in politics came when he was a sophomore in high school, when he got involved in an effort to build a skatepark in his hometown of Decorah.
“It really changed the direction of my life altogether,” Sand told Iowa Starting Line in 2015.
Sand helped gather 350 signatures on a petition seeking to have the city convert a derelict sand volleyball lot into Decorah’s first skatepark. He worked with the city council on the issue, and after the council approved the skatepark plan, Sand helped raise money for its construction.
“I saw something that to me was a problem in town, I brought that problem’s existence to the attention of people who were tasked with helping to solve it, and just kept doing what I needed to do to get it fixed,” he told Starting Line’s Pat Rynard. “And it ended up having real results. It opened my eyes. Here’s something I really enjoyed doing, that I feel good about doing because I had a positive impact on my community, and it appears at least that I was OK at it, that I got it done. That affected what I wanted to do afterward.”
By the time the skatepark opened, Sand had already left for college. He attended Brown University, where he received a bachelor’s in political science. Sand returned to Iowa and earned a law degree at the University of Iowa College of Law.
Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller appointed Sand assistant attorney general in 2010. During Sand’s seven years in the AG’s office, he handled several high-profile cases, including corruption in the state’s tax credit program for film production and the Iowa connection to an international Ponzi scheme. His most famous prosecution was the so-called “Hot Lotto” case, still the country’s largest lottery fraud scheme. Following the successful conclusion of the lottery case in 2017, Sand resigned to launch his first run for elective office.
Sand defeated incumbent Auditor Mary Mosiman, a Republican, winning 51 percent of the vote. He was the only challenger to beat an incumbent in statewide office that year. In 2022, Sand was the only Democratic incumbent in statewide office to win reelection.
The Iowa Democratic Party’s last nominee for governor, Deidre DeJear, was hampered by, among other things, a lack of statewide name recognition and of a lack of fundraising support from Democrats. These won’t be problems for Sand. He is both the only Democrat still in a statewide elective office, and the state’s best known Democrat. He has an active social media presence, where he not only talks about issues facing the state and his work as auditor, but also his love of hunting, fishing and Casey’s pizza.
As for funding, Sand ended last year with $8.6 million in his campaign account. Seven million of that total was donated by family members, $3 million from his wife Christine and $4 million from her parents, Nixon and Nancy Lauridsen.
“Every one of my campaigns has had substantial financial support from my in-laws, which I appreciate,” Sand told Radio Iowa. “They know me really well and they trust me to do the right thing. I’ve also in every one of those campaigns have had record-breaking grassroots support.”
Sand had approximately 28,000 small dollar donations last year.
Sand told the Register he intends to keep his campaign focused on Iowa, rather than engaging in political debates at the national level.
“We desperately need to have a conversation about what’s happening in the state of Iowa, in Des Moines, under that building over there,” he said, referring to the State Capitol. “Because what they are doing is, in some, in many cases, so contrary to just common sense, that when you bring it to people’s attention, it changes their attitudes.”
In a statement issued after Sand’s announcement, the Republican Governors Association called him “just another extreme liberal” and said Iowans “want a governor who will protect their values and tax dollars.”
Sand wasn’t the only 2026 candidate for governor to make news Monday. Randy Feenstra, the Republican who represents Iowa’s 4th Congressional District in Congress, filed the paperwork to create the Feenstra for Governor committee, CBS News reported. Feenstra, who was elected to his third term in one of the country’s most solidly Republican districts, has not yet released a statement about his filing or his intended run for governor, but he did tweet out a statement praising President Trump’s trade policies on Monday afternoon.
