Rita Hart carrying the Democratic ticket in Iowa’s District 2

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Rita Hart’s living room campaign is an unending series of phone calls and Zoom meetings to reach voters she’s more accustomed to encountering on their front porches and festival parade routes.

With no primary opponent, Hart is focusing on outreach and fundraising for her Iowa Second District Congressional campaign that may reach $5 million, she told The North Scott Press.

“We’ve looked at similar races and circumstances that surround this campaign. We’re guessing it will take around $5 million,” she said.

The 2018 Iowa Third District Congressional campaign spending included $5 million by Democrat Cindy Axne, $2.8 million by Republican David Young, and nearly $9 million from secret, independent expenditures on issue campaigns attacking both.

Hart is a former Iowa state Senator and lieutenant governor candidate who aspired to Iowa’s Second Congressional seat when incumbent Dave Loebsack (D-Iowa City) announced his retirement at the end of this term. Hart said she reached out to other prospective Democratic contenders, who all stepped aside, leaving her unopposed in Iowa’s June 2 primary.

“All were dedicated to keeping this seat in Democrat hands,” she said.

She’s not quite sure how her general election campaign will proceed. Fewer events and much more early voting mean new strategies to reach not just Democrats, but the no-party registrants who make up the largest bloc of Second District voters.

“I need to reach out to Independents and Republicans I can learn from,” she said.

She declined to assess state and federal COVID-19 responses, but said bipartisan support of relief bills is the right path.

“People want to be confident and positive. They don’t want to be bogged down in fear. I look at that and think this is what America is about,” she said.

She said Congress should focus on long-term economic stability, and let degreed, appointed health professionals combat the virus.

“We need very close accountability and transparency to make sure money goes to people who need it the most,” she said.

The rural economic development focus of her state senate service will be the foundation of her congressional work.

“How we get through this crisis is figuring how to give people opportunities to be involved in solutions,” she said.

That general election message will emerge over the summer, though she’s not sure if she’ll be delivering it door-to-door, over social media, or campaign events, should they resume.

She said she’d miss town parades she’s attended with her husband on their side-by-side tandem bicycle. But staying home has been helpful through spring planting at their Wheatland area family farm, and caring for her in-laws who founded the farm and live nearby.

“I’m fine working from home. I don’t want to bring a virus home to them,” she said.

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