Congressional candidate makes stop in Glenwood

Third district U.S. House of Representatives candidate Desmund Adams made a stop in Glenwood last Tuesday as part of his tour of the district’s 16 Iowa counties.

Adams, 41, of Clive, threw his hat into the third district ring last July. He has never held public office before but was the first Democrat challenger to enter the race against third district Republican incumbent David Young and is the first African-American to ever seek federal office in Iowa. Adams is running, he said, to make a better third district and a better Iowa.

“I have a 7-year old and a 20-year old and I care about the future of the third congressional district,” he said.

Adams opened his barnstorm tour Feb. 29 in Polk County before stops in Warren, Madison, Adair, Union, Adams, Taylor and Ringgold counties that day. Tuesday brought stops in Guthrie, Cass, Pottawattamie, Fremont, Page, Montgomery and Mills counties.
Talking with voters from both parties all over the district, the candidate sees the issues facing many Iowans as the same: economic fairness, middle class job creation, investment in infrastructure, shrinking rural populations and climate change among them.
“These are issues and policies that aren’t unconnected to the real world,” Adams said.

Adams’s vision for helping Iowa in the house includes attacking, head on, those issues as well as social security for Iowa’s aging population, improved broad-band internet access in rural areas to help businesses and increasing Iowa’s stake in renewable energy. He sees direct opportunities to serve the third district on the agriculture, financial services and ways and means committees while addressing Iowa’s biggest issues.

Adams brought his campaign to Glenwood hoping to get across a message that he is the only Democrat candidate who can defeat incumbent freshman Congressman David Young in the general election this fall.

“I want to be the campaign and the candidate for the mass of the third congressional district – not just Polk or Pottawattamie County,” Adams said. “We’ve got a lot of counties, 16 counties. This is not a one or two county race. Spending time with folks on the ground is how you do it.”

In all of his stops on what he’s dubbed his “People First  campaign,” the candidate said, he’s building a “broad-based coalition of support” in the district that’s responsive to the issues facing Iowans. The third district is heavily Republican but has supported President Obama in both of his presidential elections. Democrats, Adams said, haven’t faired well in recent congressional and gubernatorial elections in Iowa but he can change that.

“We’ve had six straight years of eviscerations of (democratic) candidates,” he said. “It’s not just about money. It’s about political leadership and grassroots campaigns. We are building an Obama-like coalition that is not only inclusive of activists, but also those that aren’t activists. We’re going after our young progressives, our super progressives, we’re including African-Americans, Latinos, community leaders, legal and business stakeholders.”

Adams is a Chicago-native who grew up in a single-parent home. After dropping out of high school he earned his general equivalency degree in the Job Corps before going on to earn a bachelor’s degree and a law degree from Drake University.

Also vying for the third district seat on the Democratic side is Iraq war veteran and vice chair of the Iowa Democratic Party Jim Mowrer and Mike Sherzan, a Des Moines businessman. Young is unopposed on the Republican side.

The primary elections in Iowa are set for June 6. The general election is Nov. 8.