Dave Muhlbauer grew up in Manilla, farmed with his extended family and spent years building a life that moves between the boardroom and the barn. Now, the 42-year-old Crawford County supervisor is joining Rob Sand’s bid for Iowa governor as the Democrat’s running mate, giving the statewide ticket a rural face and a western Iowa base as the general election campaign takes shape.
Sand called Muhlbauer a reflection of what he wants the ticket to stand for, praising him as hard-working, honest and willing to help out. He also said Muhlbauer has a record of working with everyone to deliver for western Iowa and knows it is time to “rotate the crops” in state government, a line meant to signal change in a state where Republicans hold most levers of power. Muhlbauer, who is serving his eighth year on the Crawford County Board of Supervisors, said he sees local government as the place where people first bring their concerns and where officials hear them without layers of distance.
That message carries some real weight in a race where Sand has made government accountability and the influence of insiders central to his campaign. He ran unopposed in this year’s Democratic primary and has been arguing that Iowa needs a break from one-party control. Muhlbauer’s addition is meant to help with that pitch, especially in western Iowa and among farm voters who may be more familiar with his background than with statehouse politics.
For Muhlbauer, the selection draws on a family history that mixes agriculture and public service. He and his extended family farm corn, soybeans and alfalfa near his father’s childhood home, and they also raise cattle, hogs and horses. Muhlbauer said the family has been farming for five generations. His late father and grandfather were elected to the board of supervisors and the state Legislature, and he has framed his own political identity as rooted in that tradition of rural Democrats winning in places that usually vote red.
He also brings a campaign history that ended in loss. Muhlbauer launched a Democratic bid for U.S. Senate in 2022 against Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, then stopped after the death of his 4-year-old nephew in a farm accident. He said the family had to rally together and be present, a reminder that his public life has already been shaped by grief as much as by ambition.
Sand’s choice gives his ticket a partner who can speak to the state’s farm country in plain terms, but how much that changes the map is still the unanswered question. Muhlbauer says he and Sand are not running as a red-versus-blue ticket but as one built around working across the aisle for common-sense solutions. The two will now try to turn that argument into votes, especially in the western counties where Muhlbauer has spent much of his life.
