And as KXA Live and Local continues, it's a conversation we recorded Wednesday afternoon for convenience of schedules.
I'm joined in the studio by Matt Reister.
Mr. Reister is the Republican candidate for Iowa House.
It's District 76.
Now, this will be an open seat.
The current holder of the office is not seeking reelection.
He's elsewhere on the ballot, and so you've got an open seat.
Matt for Iowa.com, the website, M-A-T-T-F-O-R-I-O-W-A, Matt for Iowa.com.
Mr. Easter, thanks so much for taking the time.
Thanks, Jeff.
Great to be in here.
What led you to decide when this seat became open to go through the process of making your intentions known and having the appropriate folks name you through the nominating committee?
It all started on Friday, June 12th.
I woke up to a bunch of text messages asking if I was going to run for Derek Wolf's house seat, which is my former representative.
And I was kind of surprised what's going on.
I had no idea what was going on.
Well, Derek had been named earlier that day.
Early in the morning, I think it was leaked that he was named by Zach Lane to be the Lieutenant Governor candidate.
And because I've done this in the past.
There are some usual suspects when an opening happens that reach out to me and I made a decision after the 2012 Iowa Senate race that I narrowly lost.
I'm done with this.
I'm going to be with my family.
I'm content to be done with it.
Back then I had quite a bit of political ambition that I just don't have now.
And the people who reach out to me when these opportunities come up are well-meaning good people.
And I respect him and thank you and all that, but no, thanks.
I'm not interested.
Well, after getting my arm twisted a little bit, I agreed to help them find a good candidate.
And we thought we had Walt Rogers lined up, who is recovering from pancreatic cancer surgery, but doing really well, thankfully.
He's just not quite strong enough yet.
He really strongly considered it.
And then finally said, I can't do this.
And then we had another gal named Adrian Butger.
who we thought would be phenomenal.
And she, I talked to her a few days before the nominated convention and she said, yeah, you know, I was actually going to reach out to you and let you know that I'm out because I think I'm getting engaged.
And so then that was just a few days and people were kind of like, I think it's going to be you.
I tried to get out of it by giving my bosses and boards in different ministries and organizations that I work for.
the chance to kind of play the veto card.
And I thought one of them out of four would and they all actually said no, we're going to tell you to go ahead and do this.
And so that was kind of my final sign to throw my hat in.
And I'm actually excited about it.
I finally got to the point of being excited through reluctance
and never thought I'd do it again.
Because you had run a race before, Senate races, it's a broader geographic area.
And I don't think people truly understand what it takes to run a race at the state house level, not just the money, but the time, the imposition on family and friends and work, et cetera.
So it's the kind of thing that you can't be blamed for saying, yeah, I've done this
before.
I'm not sure I want to do it again.
That's absolutely right.
It is hard work.
And if I was going to do it, I was going to do it well.
And so I knew kind of the cost upfront.
Now, one of the things that was more attractive to me was that it was a house race.
So a smaller geographic area, a smaller district.
And frankly, it's a district that I fit better in than the Senate district I fit in before.
And so I was excited about that.
And so here we are.
House District 76.
That's a pretty good geographic area.
It's not a metro district by any stretch.
No, we've got Southern Cedar Falls, Southwest Waterloo, Evansdale, Elk Run, Gilbertville, down into Mount Auburn, La Porte City, Dysart, Treer, Hudson and rural parts of Southern Blackhawk County and Northern Benton and Northern Tama County.
So it's I've really enjoyed getting down into some of these smaller towns that I haven't spent much time in meeting folks.
spending time in their communities, eating their food, and it's been great.
You're no stranger to elective office.
You currently hold elective office.
Yeah, I'm on the Hudson City Council.
That was another one that I reluctantly agreed to after I got written in.
And it's been a good experience.
You know, I don't think there's anything that's more representative of public service than being on a small town city council.
Pretty thankless.
It seems on the outside maybe kind of unimportant or insignificant and in some ways it is, but to get in there and figure out how to manage budget and take care of the needs of the citizens and kind of balance those things has been a great laboratory for me that I didn't think was going to really train me up or teach me for anything, but here we are and it'll help me be a better legislator.
Matt Reister is our guest.
He is the Republican candidate.
House District 76, matt4iowa.com is the website.
He joins us on News Talk 1540 KXEL.
So give us a little more sense of your background that led you to at one point, as you said, have a little more serious political ambition to the point where you say, okay, the stars have aligned.
I'm getting the message that I should run for it now.
Give us a sense of your background.
So I was born and raised in a home where you'll appreciate this, raised on the radio.
Talk radio all the time.
My mom listed a Christian radio.
We listened to the Iowa Hawkeyes.
Didn't have a TV until I was in seventh grade.
My dad was on the Cedar Falls School Board for 25, something like that, years, which is an elected office.
And he's a plumber, so he wasn't a politician in the traditional sense of the word.
But we were just raised in a home where current events were discussed and where public service was modeled.
And so as I got in college, I went to study science.
I wanted to be a doctor, but I got interested in two things in college besides that, which led me to change my major and go a different direction.
But I was interested in ministry, Christian ministry, and then politics.
And like I said earlier, I earlier on when I was younger and ran the first time, I had a ton of political ambition.
I think that that is certainly worn off.
I had more of an idealistic view.
of that back then that I do now.
Nevertheless, we still those seats are going to be filled with 100 legislators in the House and 50 in the Senate.
And it might as well be people who believe the right stuff and have the right temperament and personality to serve in that role well.
And humbly, I think I fit that.
Alright, let's talk some issues in terms of you cannot predict every issue that may come before a lawmaker, but we have a sense of Attitude if you will or the mindset that an individual has that might help us understand how you might act in certain issues So give us a sense from the political standpoint.
What do you think is important for the next representative of this district?
Well, if you go by just what I'm hearing knocking on doors people are concerned about affordability and the cost of living which is certainly influenced in Part maybe large part by what government does
in terms of taxation, in terms of creating a climate that is conducive to business and enterprise thriving, the job market being strong, in terms of prices for food or other goods and services being lower or higher.
And so the cost of living and affordability is certain at the top of the list.
Education is the biggest line item in the budget in Iowa, K-12 education in particular.
And so we got to weigh in on that for sure.
There are several other issues, but I like what you said, which is you can't really anticipate exactly what's coming.
And so one of the things that's different about me now than who I was when I ran 20 years ago or 15 years, whatever that was, is I cared a lot more back then about being electable, and therefore I cared more about people liking me.
And I just don't have that.
Wiring in me anymore.
I turned 51 last week and I think something that comes with age is just not caring about some of those superficial things the way that we once did and so I think that in addition to you know, maybe having the right perspective or the right Makeup to handle the issues the right way.
I think you need to be the kind of person that is gonna Whatever the the cost is if you want to do the right thing
take heat for something that's not popular, if that's what's required.
And I'm way more positioned to do that in 2026 than it was in 2012 or 2006.
Matt Reister is our guest.
Iowa House District 76.
He's the Republican candidate on the ballot in Tuesday's general election.
Matt for Iowa dot com is the website.
Private property rights.
It's something that we've heard a lot about in a variety of different contexts It's not limited to one issue, but it has been focused on Pipelines and various things, but it's a broader issue.
Where do you stand on
that?
I'm a huge defender of private property rights and you're the political expert maybe even more so than myself I believe the Declaration of Independence.
They said we're endowed by our
the creator of certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Before they said the pursuit of happiness, they argued about saying in the ownership of property, your property rights.
And so this is core to what it is to be American, to own your own property.
There's obviously been this imminent domain issue around this whole pipeline fiasco that was put in the state of Iowa.
My issue isn't so much with the pipeline itself.
I mean, if there's a business opportunity to be benefited from by bringing a pipeline in fine, I just think when you start to take people's property for a private business, I mean, that's way, way out of bounds.
And there are other iterations of how property rights have interacted with Iowa politics, but that's the one that's most on the front of my mind that I hear more about the most about recently.
When people are considering
They are wanting to know in my view these days they want to know that they can trust the person that They that their interest will be looked out for and you've mentioned a few of these issues give us a sense all of the things being equal Why are they making a good decision putting their trust in you to represent them in Des Moines as opposed to other choices other races etc
Yeah, that's a great question.
And it does boil down to trust.
And before I answer this, I just want to I'm not casting stones at anybody.
I'm not indirectly trying to kneecap anybody.
But I am a man of faith who believes that I am accountable to a creator who is beyond me based on a set of principles and truths that
that I adhere to and I've built my life around in a very serious way.
Been married coming up on 27 years to the same woman, have not deviated.
I love her more today than I did when we got married and I'm more attracted to her today than I was then.
And I've owned businesses, I've raised four kids with just, I would say a code of ethics that it's not perfect, but it's pretty impeccable.
by today's standards.
And I say that humbly and actually because of the grace of God at work in my life, not so much because I'm a great guy.
But I hope that voters vote for candidates based on who they trust the most.
That's who I vote for.
And I think if they put that criteria against me and they do their due diligence to find out
If I measure up to that criteria, this is
going to be an easy vote to cast.
You're asking folks in District 76 to elect you, and I'll let you take the last couple of minutes of this conversation to make that case in whatever way we haven't discussed or whatever way you think is most appropriate.
I would best describe myself politically as a conservative, even more so than a Republican, although I am on the Republican ticket.
And I think that in this election, we have a lot of real clear decisions.
I think that there are many well-meaning Democrats and even some liberals who are friends of mine.
But I think that there is a wing of the Democrat Party right now that is threatening to hijack not only that party, but this entire country, our state.
And this is an important election that you can't sit out.
You need to go to the polls and get this thing righted and we'll serve you the best that we can.
Mr. Easter, good luck on Tuesday and thank you for the time.
Thank you, Jeff.
Matt Reister, Republican, House District 76, matt4iowa.com, the website, a conversation we recorded Wednesday afternoon so you could hear it now on News Talk 1540, KXEL, where Iowa comes to talk.
And as KXEL Live and Local continues, this is a conversation that we recorded late Wednesday afternoon so you could hear it now.
And I'm joined on the news line by the Republican candidate for Congress, Northeast Iowa's second district.
He's Joe Mitchell.
JoeMitchell.com is the website.
Mr. Mitchell, thanks so much for calling in from the road.
Jeff, good to be with you.
All right, so as you're on these last few days, you're with the president in Sioux City the other day.
He's coming to your district and to Dubuque this weekend.
What are you feeling?
What are you hearing from the road as the campaign moves to its conclusion?
Well, Jeff, people are energized.
And, you know, I've been on the road constantly for the last few months, you know, heading every single county in our district, all 22 of them.
We're actually coming from Tama County right now.
We just had a huge crowd in Tama with Zach Lane.
Senator Chuck Grassley was there.
We had a fantastic turnout.
But every day, Jeff, I'm getting more and more confident.
Now, I won't be confident until we see the results on November 3rd.
But the momentum is on our side.
Make no mistake.
And when you look at the early vote numbers coming in, Democrats told you, and this is mainly national Democrats.
This is the press.
This is the left-wing media.
They told you we were going to have an abysmal year.
in Iowa.
There might be a blue wave other places, but it looks like right now we are building up that red wall to stop that blue wave.
And this is where I see Republicans energized and why they're energized is because they see the most radical left Democrat party in the entire lifetime running right now in 2026.
And this isn't just an election about the next two years.
This is an election
about resetting the table and either goes one way, which is the way of Republicans, which is says, we need common sense candidates.
We need people that believe in Bill baby, Bill drill, baby drill, you know, American dominance and energy, making sure that we don't have a wide open border, making sure that we're cutting taxes, giving more people's hard earned money back to them or the Democrat Party, which says we're going to embrace socialism.
They believe in the DSA platform, the Democrat Socialists of America, Zora Mamdani, Abdul El Sayed, AOC, Elon Omar.
These are the people taking over their party.
And I think Democrats need to make a statement to say we're not going to vote for radical left socialists.
We went a sane, moderate party once again, which they haven't had for quite a few years.
And I tell people all this time, Jeff, I say for the sake of elections,
For me, it's easier when the Democrats are far-left lunatics like Lindsay James.
It's easier for me to win my election, but it's bad for the country.
It's bad for the country to have a far-left socialist Democrat party.
We need to have a moderate Democrat party once again that doesn't believe grown men can go into little girls' bathrooms, that grown men can play in girls' sports.
And this is what we're dealing with.
And so we're seeing that momentum build up.
We're seeing Republicans all over the state be energized because of myself, Ashley Henson, Zach Lane, all the way down the ticket and they see the radicals we're running against and they say, we don't want any of it.
What's interesting to me is how so much of the Iowa party has been co-opted over the course of time.
And to the point that they've lost the caucuses, you know, there there's just not the same spirit there in the voter registration.
Bear is that out.
And I heard your party chair, Jeff Kaufman, the other day, just simply say, if we turn our people out, we win.
But realistically, yes, you have the voter registration advantage in your district as well.
But if enough Democrats show up and bring enough independence with them, that can make it a much tougher race.
What can you say to draw people who don't wear a red or a blue jersey over to the Joe Mitchell side?
Well, see the independence in this race, who are my neighbors, family members of mine, friends of mine, they don't want crazy candidates.
And if they thought the Democrat Party was somewhat rational, they would vote for those people.
They're open minded to that.
They're not opposed to that.
You know,
A lot of these people that I know, again, friends and family members of mine, neighbors of mine, if it was Bill Clinton's Democrat Party again, they would be with them.
We would probably get crushed.
But that's not who it is.
These are radical left socialists.
Whether they say it out loud or not, it's already that support.
They're not people.
They're not ad-huster.
They're not ad-huster.
They're not ad-huster.
They're not ad-huster.
They're not ad-huster.
They're not ad-huster.
They're not ad-huster.
They're not ad-huster.
They're not ad-huster.
They're not ad-huster.
They're not ad-huster.
They're not ad-huster.
They're not ad-huster.
They're not ad-huster.
They're not ad-huster.
They're not ad-huster.
They're not ad-huster.
They're not ad-huster.
They
point that we call them right now the issues and they're afraid to call them out because radically grandparents who might both said to my parents chef I think I've told you this before they were Democrats you
know my
grandfather worked at the case plant in Burlington was a union worker and my other grandfather works in the gypsum plant you know he served in the Korean War but they were huge Democrats they were Democrats until they died and they wouldn't recognize the Democrat Party of today they weren't at all
They would be disgusted by it, actually.
And so, you know, this is where, you know, we have to get that message out.
But, you know, this is where the independents look at that.
And they just say, this is way too radical for me.
And I think they want the Democrat Party to moderate as well.
Joe Mitchell is the Republican candidate.
He won the primary in June.
He's the party nominee for Northeast Iowa's second congressional district.
JoeMitchell.com is the website.
He joins us on News Talk 1540, KXEL.
Your race is interesting, the second district, because in addition to...
a republican and a democrat each of whom won a primary you have an independent on the ballot by petition and you have a libertarian party candidate so there are four different names on there and in an era where people might be dissatisfied with the traditional two parties well you've got a couple of opportunities there if you want to devote for them what do you say to people
who talk about, well, I wanna, I wanna issue a protest.
I wanna show that I'm not for how things have been going, et cetera.
You've heard the lines from people, no doubt.
How does Joe Mitchell answer those?
Right, well, we tell people, Jeff, we're gonna stick up for islands first and foremost.
You know, I don't care what the party leader says.
I don't care what my other colleagues say.
You know, we've ran on a platform of anti-corruption.
Number one, we're not taking any corporate pack money.
And we'll be the only Republican in Washington not taking corporate PAC money from companies like BlackRock, Pfizer, Amazon, these huge, ginormous, multi-national companies.
We're not taking their money.
We don't want their money.
We've been able to run this entire race and raise millions of dollars from small dollar donations like people listening right now, five, 10, $15 donations.
The second thing is you gotta have turn limits.
I've said 12 years in the house.
12 years in the Senate, plenty of time to get your agenda done.
We have to have turnover in Washington.
The third thing is ban insider trading.
Pretty simple.
We're sick and tired of Washington politicians getting rich and our wages staying stagnant in Iowa.
And the last thing is stopping the lawmaker to lobbyist pipeline.
These guys go up there.
They serve a few terms.
They come out.
They work for their buddies on K Street.
They lobby for some big corporation, and it makes the difference when they're deciding what to and what to not vote on in Washington.
So we have to end the corruption.
And that is a unique platform we've ran on.
People told me 13 months ago when I announced this campaign, they quote unquote, experts in Washington, which there's not a lot of real experts in Washington.
They're all fake.
But these experts told me you can't run on a platform like that.
You have to run on these key
Issues and they gave me a bunch of bullshit key issues devoted to run on and we said no we're running on the anti-corruption platform And we did it in the primary we've done it in the general and it's gonna prove November 3rd That we're gonna win and people that our message resonated a hell of a lot more than anybody else's
Joe Mitchell is our guest Republican running for the US Congress You worked in the Trump administration
You have a relationship, I believe, with the president that may be closer than many other Republicans seeking a house seat for the first time.
How does that benefit the state of Iowa if you are elected?
Well, you want to have a relationship with the president, no matter who they are.
And because the president, just like the governor in our state, right, they're the executive and they have to sign the bill to get anything done.
So if you want to get funds, if you want to have money, appropriations, whatever it may be, then you're going to want to have a good relationship with the White House and with the president themselves.
And so, you know, I think the president's done a lot for the state.
He's won the state overwhelmingly three times in a row.
And people appreciate his service and what he's done to bring back, you know, just at the steel plant, $15 billion economic development deal at the largest.
economic development deal in the state's history.
He brought that to Iowa because he remembers us.
He knows how hardworking we are, and he knows that we appreciate everything he's done for this country.
And so I was honored to work for the president.
I'm honored to have a relationship with him, and we're going to make sure we utilize that relationship to get everything we can for the people of Iowa.
Joe Mitchell, Republican Northeast Iowa's second congressional district, is the Republican nominee in Tuesday's election.
In our remaining couple of minutes, I want to give you the chance to make your case directly to the voters in the second congressional district.
Well, here's what I would say, Jeff, to everybody listening right now.
Between me and Lindsey James, I'm the only lifelong island running.
She's from Portland, Oregon.
And we don't judge her for being from Portland, Oregon.
We judge her from bringing her Portland, Oregon values to Iowa.
And where does that mean?
That means she didn't show up for work over half the time this last year in the state legislature.
In Portland, Oregon, if you don't show up for work over the half the time, you'll probably keep your job.
But in Iowa, you don't.
Anybody listening right now knows if they didn't show up to their job over half the time, they would be fired.
I would be out of business.
I would lose my job.
I show up, when I tell you I'm going to do something, I do it.
I stick to my word.
In the other half of the time she was in the legislature, she was voting for illegal immigrants to get welfare benefits.
She was voting to allow kids to have sex changes.
She was voting to allow men and women sports.
And so I'm born and raised here in Iowa.
I love Iowa.
I'm going to die here in Iowa.
Lindsay James, you can't say the same.
And so I appreciate you having us on, Jeff.
We want people to go to our website, joemichael.com.
We'd love to have your support.
Make sure you go vote Tuesday, November 3rd, Tuesday, November 3rd.
You can vote early before then, please do.
But we have to have your help.
Go out, get friends, get colleagues, get coworkers, get family members dragged into the polls with you.
Make sure they know it's common sense first crazy.
And I'm the common sense candidate.
Mr. Mitchell, thank you for the time on the road today.
You're always very generous with it in spreading the message.
I appreciate it.
Good luck on Tuesday.
Thank you Jeff.
Joe Mitchell from the campaign trail on Wednesday afternoon again, it's JoeMitchell.com Republican running for Congress Northeast Iowa second congressional district again a unique race you have a it's an open seat you have a Republican a Democrat a libertarian and an independent and Mr. Mitchell is the Republican joining us on the news line on news talk 1540 KXEL where Iowa comes to talk