Douglas Jensen Of Silver City Launches Congressional Campaign

A Mills County resident has announced his candidacy to represent Iowa’s Fourth District in the U.S. House Of Representatives.
Douglas Jensen, 40, of Silver City formally launched his campaign for the Republican Party nomination earlier this month at an event in Treynor.

The decorated military combat veteran and Wisconsin native is employed as an executive in the commercial construction industry and has an extensive background in leadership and public policy. He holds multiple degrees and has completed coursework toward a Ph.D. in Public Policy and Public Administration, with a doctoral dissertation focused on leadership in Congress.

In an interview with The Opinion-Tribune last week, Jensen said his decision to run for Congress was not reached lightly.

“It was probably about 10 years ago that I saw some of the dysfunction in how our primary systems are putting up some candidates that are not the best problem solvers – they’re the loudest mouthpieces,” said Jensen. “The No. 1 issue motivating me is the lack of function. The government shutdown is just a symptom of that.

“We’ve got to find a way to get people into office that really can fix some of these big problems.”

With his campaign in its infancy, Jensen has just begun getting out to discuss issues with residents of the 37 counties that make up Iowa’s largest congressional district. The conversations have centered on issues that hit close to home.

“What’s front in mind is the local issues. – the pipeline / eminent domain, the agricultural industry, the effects of tariffs, the economy as a whole – prices are kind of jumping all over the place,” Jensen said.

“The labor market is a big one.  There’s companies that want to hire and people that want to work, but they’re not matching up. Wages for a little while were outpacing inflation, but now it seems like it’s going the other way around again. Housing has also come up in terms of the cost of housing and interest rates have made it unaffordable for a lot of people who want to get into home ownership.”

An issue of importance to Jensen that isn’t getting discussed enough or addressed by elected officials, he said, is Social Security.

“Social Security is projected to become insolvent in just a few years and that’s an issue that’s not catching a lot of attention right now,” he said. “It’s a really hard problem to solve and solving that will make somebody angry and they don’t want to touch it.”

Jensen describes himself as a “constitutional conservative who believes in limited govern-ment, fiscal responsibility and family values”

A native of Neillsville, Wis., Jensen was deployed overseas multiple times during his time as a member of the United States Air Force. His wife, Air Force Lt. Heidi Jensen, is still on active duty.

“My wife and I were both active Air Force stationed at Offutt Air Force Base together in 2011,” Jensen noted. “We started having kids and one of us had to get out because we spent half of our military careers apart with our deployments. I volunteered to get out. We’ve got two kids now and my wife is just two years from retirement. This is where we want to raise our kids, this is where we want to call home.”

The Jensens have two children who attend school in Glenwood.

Jensen is one of five Republicans seeking the congressional seat currently held by Randy Feenstra, who formally announced his run for governor Tuesday.

Other declared Republicans for the District 4 seat are Chris McGowan, Ryan Rhodes, Christian Schlaefer and Matt Windschitl.
Announced Democratic Party candidates for the seat are Dave Dawson, Stephanie Steiner and Ashley WolfTornabane.