Conservative northwest Iowa Republican challenging King

King campaign says Trump calls 9-term congressman ‘world’s most conservative human being’

State Sen. Randy Feenstra

Just days into the new year, U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Kiron, finds himself facing a well-known conservative Republican from Northwest Iowa in a 2020 primary in the sweeping 39-county 4th Congressional District.

State Sen. Randy Feenstra of Hull, a rural advocate who once called for Iowa’s small towns to boycott Des Moines businesses in protest of what he saw as a growing urban-rural divide on farm issues, announced Wednesday, nearly two years before the election, that he is opening a federal campaign committee, taking the first steps in his campaign for the Republican nomination in Iowa’s 4th Congressional District. Hull is located about 60 miles north of Sioux City.

Serving his third term in the Iowa State Senate, Feenstra, the chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, pointed to the need to provide President Trump with a strong voice who can help protect and advance a conservative agenda for America.

Feenstra is a professor at Dordt College in Sioux Center

Congressman Steve King

“What we’ve seen this past week from the new Democratic majority in Congress is appalling,” Feenstra said in a news release. “They’ve made it clear that they want nothing less than to raise taxes to historic levels, ignore the rule of law and undo the successes made by President Trump. The president needs effective conservative leaders in Congress who will not only support his agenda but actually get things done.”

A self-described “staunch conservative,” Feenstra was a key architect of last year’s historic state income tax cut, the largest in Iowa’s history.

In a news release, Feenstra said he’s been a leading anti-abortion voice and a defender the 2nd Amendment rights of Iowans. And as a co-sponsor, he said, he helped protect the integrity of Iowa’s elections by passing Voter ID legislation.

“Today, Iowa’s 4th District doesn’t have a voice in Washington, because our current representative’s caustic nature has left us without a seat at the table,” Feenstra said. “We don’t need any more sideshows or distractions. We need to start winning for Iowa’s families.”

A former EMT and Sioux County treasurer, Feenstra, 49, and his wife, Lynette, reside with their four children in his childhood hometown of Hull.

King’s son and campaign operative Jeff King sent a news release to the media Wednesday blasting Feenstra as disloyal.

“Just last December 28, Randy Feenstra told Jeff King, ‘As you know, I love your dad and I would never run against him,’ ” the King news release read. “Today, misguided political opportunism, fueled by establishment puppeteers, has revealed that Mr. Feenstra is easily swayed by the lies of the Left.”

Jeff King’s release said his dad is a leading congressional ally of the president’s whom Trump frequently refers to as “the world’s most conservative human being.”

“From his statements, it appears that Mr. Feenstra offers Republican voters nothing but warmed-over talking points from liberal blogs and failed Democratic candidates,” the King release concludes.

The primary will be held in June of 2020.