Erin Murphy of The Gazette

As KXE Alive and Local continues on this Friday, I welcome into the studio someone familiar with microphones.

That's because he is the afternoon host at our companion station Rock 108.

You hear him from two until seven weekday afternoons.

It's Ned.

Welcome back, sir.

I'm back.

I love being on the station occasionally.

You can sit here all the time if you really.

You know, it would save me in gas.

That's for sure.

My gosh.

Well, yeah, welcome to the economy.

It resides up here in the Cedar Valley, but.

The control room for Rock 108 these days is in Hiawatha.

Good ol' 45 minute drive, man.

I'm familiar with 380 so well.

One way.

Yeah, one way.

Just one.

Gotta get by home eventually.

So you're going to, once again, and this is why you're here and you can come in anytime, but especially when you're talking about the annual Net On Air 24 hour live stream.

It comes up tomorrow, Saturday, November 7th, starting at 9 a.m.

Tell us first of all, what in the blazes this is?

Well, first of all,

is the 10th year anniversary and 10 years amazingly of going online on my Twitch channel, twitch.tv, slash net on air, which is a live streaming website.

A lot of people do a lot of live streaming, either chatting or basically anything nowadays.

But on my channel, I play video games.

I'm a big video gamer since I was a child, a young lad, and play games for 24 hours to raise money for kids at the Stead Family Children's Hospital in Iowa City.

And, uh, man, it's, it's, it's quite the occasion.

And on the face of it, for someone of my vintage who remembers Pong,

that was

high tech.

Um, but, but it was so cool at the time, but it's still the thought of, Hey, let's watch this guy play video games.

Yeah.

But.

You're doing it for a cause, which we need to focus on, but you also, it's not just you playing

video

games.

This thing has gotten super sized and the kids are even involved.

Yes.

Yeah.

It's become it, you know, and it.

On paper, it sounds pretty boring.

Guy watching video games.

That sounds boring.

But no, really, it's 24 hours of entertainment.

It's making jokes, making laughs.

You can play the games with me if you want, with certain games that we have going on, which anyone of any age can play with me.

And my friend Kyle is with me, so we're playing two-player games.

And there's incentives.

I hate pickles, Jeff.

I hate pickles.

You and me both, sister.

Oh my gosh.

So for 25 bucks, you donate to the kids at the Stead Famichones Hospital.

I will eat a pickle and it will be a struggle.

And I'll tell you, in the past 10 years, I've eaten a lot of jars of pickles, Jeff.

And it's not fun for me, but it is hilarious for those that get to watch.

Now, see, this is where now with the experience of

age.

If you had to do it over again, you'd say, I don't know what's your favorite food.

I'm just going to go with Chinese or pizza.

Okay.

So let's say, oh, I'm Ned and I hate pizza,

but

I'll eat a slice of pizza.

If you don't see, you should have flipped it around.

I should have made it a favorite.

You know, that way I probably would have downed nine pizzas if that was the possibility.

And another one, not only top of that, there's plenty of other incentives too.

But besides pickles, also the hair waxing, kind of a hairy man.

You know, my arms specifically, so for $50.

I will wax my arm and then my friend Kyle pulls off the hair right on stream and it is a painful situation, but it's pain for beauty, right?

But it's also to bring money up for the kids.

And that's just some of it.

There's also prize giveaways.

I do a mug every single year with a special saying on it.

And also I've also gotten some wonderful people to bring in prizes, a video games, et cetera.

And our friends in a band that are giving me a prize pack to give away.

So you have chances.

to win stuff.

How did the idea first come about?

Because we've known about it, obviously.

We've talked about it a few times, but you've put this thing on steroids.

How'd the whole thing start 10 years ago?

It started weirdly enough, a friend of mine said like, Hey, there's this cool thing.

I'm like,

Like anything, yeah, it does sound kind of cool.

All right, so I grabbed what resources I had, which was this tiny Macintosh mini, you know thing, a borrowed webcam that I borrowed from the station here and a little microphone I had and I just sat in my second bedroom and played games and that was it.

And then the next year it got bigger.

And then I was like, oh, there's more people donating this thing.

I started at 500.

Then the next year was 1,000.

Then the next year was two.

And I'm like,

Okay, something's building here.

Something is building here.

And then before you know it, I'm asking for 7,500.

I'm like, what is happening?

And then 10, and then on the ninth year last year, $9,500.

I'm like, okay, obviously we have something going on here and this is kind of fun.

And now it's a full scale production, studio lighting, massive PCs, all this stuff.

And I'm like, you know, this is a great example of if you just keep at it and you believe in it.

It'll happen.

Well, and again, it is for the absolute best cause, Stead Family Children's Hospital, and I don't have children, I don't have grandchildren, but what a wonderful facility for those.

And I want

to get to

that in a moment, but I want to remind the audience, we're talking with Ned from Rock 108, the 10th annual Ned On Air 24-hour live stream for the kids.

It starts tomorrow Saturday at 9 a.m.

and you can watch it.

at twitch.tv slash Ned on air.

You

can make the donations.

You can humiliate our friend

here.

You can.

You sure can.

And for a cheap price.

For a cheap price.

As opposed to humiliation daily on the radio.

That's every single day.

And that's free.

This is free American

radio.

Totally live.

One of the things, you know, stuff happens for a reason in this world.

Okay.

Um, and if anybody wants to say otherwise, we'll go talk to somebody else, but stuff happens for a reason.

You started doing this as a young married guy without kids.

You had this as the charity and like, okay, this would be really cool.

And it's tied to the children's miracle network.

And

now you have kids.

Now I have kids five and three.

God bless.

Yeah.

And.

You've availed yourselves of the services of this very cause you've been raising money for.

I have.

Holy cow,

dude.

Yeah, it all came in a weird way and unfortunately, but at the same time, full circle.

My three-year-old daughter now, her name is Ivy, she was diagnosed with juvenile arthritis.

And I didn't think, you know, young kids got something like arthritis.

I always thought that was, you know, older or whatever.

But no, it's a thing.

And we were sent down to the hospital and it was interesting because we were

going to local doctors and they're like, oh, she has a fracture.

I'm like, this doesn't seem like that's what that is.

And the moment they said, you know what, let's send you to the Children's Hospital in Iowa City.

Went down there that day and it took them a minute.

to look at it and just go, that's totally what that is.

And I'm like, I'm like, oh, and the amount of relief that we had, that just a huge monkey off of our back.

And it's just things like that, that gives so much relief to parents, to kids.

And you go to the hospital and it's amazing.

You go in there and there's like playgrounds.

There's things for kids to play with.

And even video games, like little roll away video games.

And, you know, being in a hospital is not fun for a kid.

It's not.

Or anybody.

Or anybody.

But this place does its best to make the kids as comfortable as possible for unfortunate situations.

And man, I don't care.

My wife and I will gladly drive down to Iowa City.

No problem to get the services that they offer.

Well, you'd crawl to a hospital if it's going to help your kid.

Oh, and my God, I won't even care.

But the fact, and again,

you had the relief because experts down the road,

not much

further than that drive to Hiawatha, not to remind you of that.

But you have the experts, they have the care, they know what they're doing, it's a tremendous facility.

and she's doing well.

Yeah, she's not what you call remission yet, but we have to do her medications, but it used to be every week.

Every week I'd have to do the injection, and that's heartbreaking, because you don't want to do that.

But now, is she...

because it's done so well because of the recommendations and all the care that we've gotten.

She now only has to drink the medicine with apple juice, so no big deal.

And she just takes a sip and she's like, and every time she always reminds me, a little more.

I'm like, yep, little more, a little more.

I'm like, would you just finish it Ivy?

So I'm like, she teases me now.

Your kid acting out?

No, what a mystery.

But yeah, and we went from having like a high dose to.

And then it really, and that's the big thing too, right?

She wasn't able to walk at all, like barely able to walk.

And then we start getting the care that we get from the hospital and she's, I can't keep up with her because she's running around.

I'm like, slow down.

But that's the care that they offer this place.

And that's why I take this so personally.

And yeah, is it a dork in front of a TV playing video games, eating pickles and ripping hair off of his arm?

Uh-huh.

But I'm a success story.

of the hospital that I hope can extend to more kids.

And again, when you started it, you didn't have that connection.

I had nothing.

Nothing.

I had a borrowed webcam.

I did.

Borrowed webcam.

And I think it's still in there.

Yeah, you don't want to know where I got that one.

Yeah.

All right.

So this, what a wonderful thing that you do for the community.

And again, from total pureness of your heart and now with this.

First person testimony.

Ned on air 24 hour live stream.

It's for the kids at the Stead Family Children's Hospital.

That's the Iowa healthcare system as we call it nowadays.

Twitch.tv.

Twitch.tv slash Ned on air starts at nine o'clock tomorrow morning, Saturday goes for 24 hours and the kids make the cameo appearances and

yes, they do.

They do requests for games.

I mean, it's a whole thing.

It's a thing, man.

It's fun.

Well, go get some sleep.

Yeah, I'll tell you when it hits like 4am in the morning.

I'm like, I just don't want to do this anymore.

That's when you have to get up and start playing like an active video game.

And that's the only way you can do it.

Because when you're, I used to be able to do this as a kid, but now as a 39 year old adult, sitting and playing video games all day is an impossibility.

So this is like an endurance round for me.

You realize.

To the people listening to this guy or to me, it's like, oh, I was a 30.

I remember that when I was 39.

No, I don't know that long ago.

You listened to Ned weekdays two until seven on rock 108 and you can watch the net on air 24 hour live stream twitch.tv slash net on air.

It starts tomorrow 9 a.m.

for 24 hours.

And again, all the money that you are

kind enough to donate goes to the Stead Family Children's Hospital.

Thank you on behalf of the community for doing this, but thank you for coming in today and sharing the information and best of luck with it.

Thanks for having me, of course.

10th anniversary.

Oh my God, where did that time go?

I was going to say,

you

started that when you were here.

Yes.

In my hair, I had less grays.

I actually had no grays yet.

Yeah, well, now I have them.

There's an aisle at the store that I could point you to.

Good ol' Rogaine.

That's working, share.

That's Ned.

And again, it's twitch.tv slash nedonair.

From the station where Iowa comes to talk, News Talk 1540, KXEL.

And as KXEL Live and Local continues in this 8 o'clock hour on a Friday, that's when you're hearing the conversation.

We recorded it yesterday midday for convenience of schedules and pleased to welcome back Aaron Murphy, the Des Moines Bureau Chief for the Gazette.

He does the On Iowa Politics newsletter, free e-newsletter.

Weekday mornings, it drops at about 6.45, right after the KXEL e-newsletter at 6.30.

You can sign up.

the best thing about it other than the tremendous content is it's free at the gazette dot com erin thanks

for every penny

and twice worth twice as much erin thank you so much you know you you came on with us a week ago and we talked about what might happen sort of kinda and we bandied about a few scenarios well as you sit there taking notes in your reporter's notebook biggest surprise to you as somebody who's covered this thing

Yeah, it won't shock people to hear this, but I won't try to be overly clever just for the sake of doing it.

Just the scope of it, honestly, was the biggest surprise.

We knew the polling, and we've all learned not to trust polling, and we talked about that last week, too.

But the evidence that we had, the polling we had, showed that something like this was maybe possible, or at least some degree of it.

I just like, I think almost anybody else, I didn't expect the scope of what happened to reach as far as it did.

And I'm talking about beyond Iowa here too.

So that's what was most surprising to me.

And then maybe in Iowa, following up off that, what was maybe most surprising was, and fascinating in a way that I'm still honestly trying to unpack and talking to people about

is how, despite all that happened, and how that blue wave very much did hit Iowa, the one place that was sort of insulated from that was some of those statewide director offices, where people like the Attorney General, Brenna Byrd, was taken out, but Secretary of State Paul Pate survived fairly comfortably, Ag Secretary Mike Naghe won, and Treasurer Robbie Smith

Again had a very close one but survived so that was kind of interesting And kind of raises some questions about the way Iowans voted as they went down the ballot in this one.

I Believe you and I talked I don't think on air about some of this and I said and this is my only victory lap because I didn't get anything

right

But I said I thought it would be sand 55 45.

Well, I didn't take a genius to figure out.

That's what came through I thought Henson was

closing and i thought she might win fifty two forty eight well it was roughly that number but the reverse uh... did you get a sense that the republican in that senate race was closing and then if so well what happened was at the early voting that uh... really made the difference in a race like that

yeah i what i thought going into that one i can't remember if i said this on the air last week is it's clearly close

It was clear that both campaigns felt it was close.

And the one thing that I know I was telling people towards the end is, if you made me make a prediction, I will tell you, I think Ashley Henson survives this.

But it could go either way.

And if the national mood is as big of a change as we're hearing could happen, then Ashley Henson could get swept up.

in that.

And I, again, still unpacking just the first few days.

It seems to me from a 35,000 foot view, what happened?

She just got caught up in this national wave, because like you said, she was much closer to Josh Turrick than Zach Lane was to Rob Sand.

So there were still Iowans willing to vote for her, but there was just too much democratic.

a turnout that carried swept Josh Turk to victory in that one.

Going back to the point that you were making about the statewide elected office holders, all right, in the last election four years ago, all Republicans, with the exception of the auditor, which was Rob Sand.

And that included an upset at the attorney general level, an upset at the treasurer level.

So here we go to 2026.

You've got the open seat for auditor and it clearly was a jump ball, just a few thousand votes separating.

The Democrat wins, okay.

State Treasurer Smith, who had been attacked as not exactly being a fireball in office, held off the challenge.

Attorney General Byrd, I mean that was the surprise to me.

And that was, I think, the point you were making.

It'd be one thing if it was like, all right, we're voting for all the incumbents or against all the incumbents.

What do you think happened in that attorney general's race?

Yeah, that isn't that a fascinating one.

And what's interesting to me is you look, you compare those to each other and the number of votes that the respective candidates had.

And Nate Willems got the most vote of all the Democrats for those

offices,

and

conversely, Brenna Bird did not get as many votes as Paul Pate or Mike Nagy, actually all those statewide.

So clearly, Irons, when we're going down those lists, one by one, and just kind of picking, I mean, obviously, there's always partisan voting, but there was clearly a significant chunk of Iowa voters who were going through those races one by one, and

picking each one based on who knows what, maybe based on an ad they saw, maybe based on an experience they had with the office.

It's tough to tell at this point.

But I do know there was a ton of ads in that race.

I feel like I saw more pro Brenna Bird slash anti-Nate Willems ads than vice versa, but that's anecdotal.

Maybe that wasn't actually the case.

But it is a fascinating outcome.

Well my experience in terms of the ads is the same as yours and I did not find Mr. Willems We'd invited him to do all manner of interviews radio TV and did not even get the courtesy of a response and I say that only to say I don't know that he was out there doing a lot of media and so it's interesting to have a candidate who was not

Well, there was some TV ads but not flooding the other waves with free media as an interview So that again, that's just a very interesting Target in other words people to your earlier point they looked at that race independent of everything else and Told us what they thought

Yeah, yeah, and I don't end to your point and look I didn't I wasn't aggressive I had other duties as a sign So I wasn't out there trying to run down Nate Williams a lot But I didn't see a lot of public type of is from him either I he did the Iowa press episode with Brenna Bird and he did do the state fair I remember covering him there at the soapbox and all that But other than that it was did seem to be a very ad

heavy campaign.

And yeah, I mean, I could come up with any number of guesses as to why people went the way they did.

And I don't know, did Brenner Bird get tied to Donald Trump more than some of those other candidates, statewide candidates, and did that hurt her in a state where he is, where the presidents

Um, favorability rating has been falling.

I, I, I honestly don't know.

I'm, I'm literally spitballing here, but it's just, it is, it is an interesting one to unpack,

try

to unpack anyways.

Well, that has been suggested to me, the fact that she was the one most closely identified with the president, the others were at events, et cetera.

But, uh, in that same way, uh, Joe Mitchell in Northeast Iowa, second district, very closely tied to, uh, the president.

Now.

As we look at that race, that had four individuals running, Republican, Democrat, Libertarian and Independent.

The winner was a Democrat with less than 50% of the vote.

Well, that's still good enough.

You only needed 35, okay, percent.

And so it was a close race, but a majority of people did not vote for Lindsay James, which was something I politely mentioned in the interview we did yesterday and

Um, asking what she would do to bring people across the line.

And again, it just goes back to, uh, taking care of constituents.

Well, that's, that would be a true statement.

But I find that to be fascinating, not being suggesting that everybody who voted for the libertarian or the independent would have voted for Joe Mitchell, but that just shows you how close we are in these things.

Yeah, absolutely.

And it, I guess that's the, if you, uh, if I want to go and add one more to my.

answer to your first question about

what

surprised me most uh... that was how many of these were we knew some would be close but some of these are really close i mean and this is one of them uh... just four points that we had a lot in that in that range obviously uh... uh... those statewide ones you listed uh... there were some really really really close elections uh... in this one on that not close enough to get to

one percent and have any recounts it looks like but uh... but very close very competitive uh... election that and then they did that with the blue uh... wave uh... forgive me i'd whatever term catches fire like that i hate using it i feel weird

you

know if it's what we all know about this point so it's just easier whatever that was uh... you know was enough to carry most of these close races to the democrats

Aaron Murphy is Des Moines bureau chief for the Gazette, the Gazette.com.

He's kind enough to join us on News Talk 1540 KXEL postmortem of the 2026 election.

Well, as long as you don't say blue tsunami or hurricane,

right?

Yeah, I'm not going to try to come up with some clever new version of it.

Don't call the meteorologist to come up with some other weather phrase.

But this is what I'm going to say about a blue wave.

Democrats got elected.

But I don't think it's a blue wave and here's why look at the early voting So not only did we have this massive amount of early voting?

We had a huge slice of Independence who couldn't wait to cast a ballot.

You can't predict that They're not they're not bound by who's wearing a red jersey or a blue jersey and so if it's and I'm not gonna call it anti-trump I'm gonna call it kitchen table

I'm going to call it the Casey's Quickstar factor.

I'm looking as I drive to work and I see what the price of gas is.

And then I know that my grocery cart is not nearly as full as it used to be for the amount of money I paid.

And it backfires on whatever party is in power.

In other words, if you're just angry, you're angry about status quo to some degree.

And so I don't know that these people

that it's directly anti-Trump if he were on a ballot we could we would know that for sure but the fact that independence came out and voted early in such numbers that's the clue that uh-oh the the populace is not happy

job I could 1000% I couldn't agree with you anymore and to your point I would Democratic Party chairwoman Rita Hart held a virtual

conference call with reporters yesterday.

And my first question to her was kind of set it up with the background that you just described.

Clearly voters had cost issues, different issues like the Iran war and tariffs and corruption on their mind.

And they chose Democrats as a means of change.

And my question to Rita Hart was, what do you feel Democrats need to do now

how do they need to govern and legislate over the next two years to ensure that two years from now it's not just the exact opposite reaction from voters because because i i i read the exact same way that you didn't i think that's the did the most uh... you know objective way to see that is in in in your point is appropriate it's not necessarily blue wave it's a change wave and that is a fickle thing that can

go back the other direction in two more years if those same voters don't feel like this group heard them either.

So that I think is the question for and the challenge for Democrats in the places where they gained these majorities now is what are you going to do?

You ran on all these issues.

What are you going to do to address those so that when people are voting again in two years,

Are they feeling like you actually heard them or are they feeling like well they didn't listen either so let's throw the bums out again

And I dare say I go even a little further because it seems to me that with this huge number of independence now Democrats did gain in voter registration in the report released a few days before the election Republicans still had the massive advantage and independence were in the middle in other words more independence Registered than Democrats

Well again, that's great if you can get them for your team in a certain election But I think there are so many independence because the left is further left the right is further right more people feel that neither of the traditional parties represents them so there they are in the muddy middle and Come election time.

It's like well.

I don't like what's going on.

Let's let's change team

And I don't like what's going on in two more years.

Let's change team.

And we're getting this wild swing back and forth, but yet the muddy middle doesn't have enough to agree upon within itself to form a third party, given the fact also that the system sort of rigged against it.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

100%.

And also all of this, by the way, and everything you just said, especially Jeff, is why

I believe to a large degree, Rob Sanders was successful as he was in this election, and as successful as Democrats were, he was far and away the most successful Democrat.

That's exactly what he tapped into, what you just described.

And now, similarly, the challenge for his, and he's got four years to do it, is to show that he meant that, that he legitimately wants to address

all those issues that you just described with the two-party system.

And that won't be easy for him.

And he's going to be held to it by voters, certainly, by the media, very much by the Iowa Republicans.

So it's going to be really interesting to see how he manages that over his first term.

Well, then that's a fascinating point because, again, you've got

diehard democrats who say it's been twenty four years since we elected a democrat okay now one of ours has gotten back into office time to do a b c and d that may not fit his agenda but it also is not going to fit the agenda of the i will legislature which even though the republicans in the state house took a haircut still have a pretty good uh... majority and the senate

That's going to be a net of no change probably as well.

Neither at supermajority levels, but I got plenty of votes to play with.

Yeah, that's exactly right.

And that's going to be, and look man, it'll be here before you know it.

We'll be talking about the legislative session.

That's every two years we're used to that.

By now you get about a five minute nap after the election and you're getting ready for the legislative session.

So that's going to be very interesting to see how that

works, and how that relationship unfolds between a Democratic governor and a Republican majority legislature.

And again, back to the way Rob Santoc on the campaign.

Will he work with Republicans the way that he pledged to when he was running for office?

We're going to start to find that out in just a couple months here.

How prickly, my phrase, I don't know.

if that's the best way to phrase it, is the transition going to be?

Now, Governor Reynolds issued a statement, measured, not inappropriate, congratulating him and pledging to work on a smooth transition.

Those two have not gotten along all that well over their respective time in office.

I'm just wondering how that is going to work out

If yeah, you know, I mean because it's sort of like you know, this is not sans first day at the Capitol I don't know

how

much he's necessarily gonna need just moving the office down the hall But I I'm just curious as to the body language on inauguration day could be interesting in other words

It could be a two-year point that they have been at loggerheads in on multiple occasions in the past eight years

But you know what, my honest sense, and this is pure prediction, this is just based on my view from the cheap seats, I wouldn't be surprised to see it go actually fairly smoothly.

And the reason I actually say that is Governor Reynolds has, in my time covering her over this home stretch, ever since she announced that she's not running for re-election, she has been very

very at peace with that decision and ready to move on to whatever it is that's next for her especially obviously being around her family more with her um... the husband kevin dealing with his uh... cancer issues but and but but um... he also being able to spend more time with her grandchildren she she had that there does not appear to me anyways to be a single shred

of regret or indecision in her about moving on from the governor's office, and so I could see her not worrying about this transition, not seeing it in a political view, and not harboring any ill feelings from the times that her and Rob said butted heads over the years.

Now that's, I could be proven wrong about that, that's possible too, but

That's kind of my hunch as we sit here right now.

Well, it does make sense because, um, you know, she made the decision.

She made it for all the reasons and really doesn't matter what the reasons were, but we've all talked about them.

So it's a matter of what do you need?

You don't need anything else.

Here's where the pencils are.

Here's where we keep the copy paper.

And, and, and, you know,

I mean, off you go.

There doesn't, there doesn't have to be a big shouting match.

I'm, I'm intrigued by.

the possibility of some sort of not bipartisan necessarily, but some sort of more collegial atmosphere.

And I say that because, A, that's what Governor-Alexand ran on.

He set the example in the auditor's office by hiring some of those during the original campaign or who were his critics.

So

I

guess it's going to depend.

Who does he pick?

You know, how many of the current state department heads does he either invite to stay?

They've all been appointed by Republicans.

How many does he invite to stay?

How many want to stay?

How many other people does he bring in?

That to me is going to really set the tone.

Is it just a token thing to check the box of bipartisanship or is it really something where

There's credibility behind the campaign promise.

I absolutely agree and one of the things that I'm most interested to see unfold in the coming weeks and these two months here before inauguration on January 12th.

One name I'll just throw out as an example.

I don't think this is going to... Well, I'll just go straight to it.

Debbie Durham as the Economic Development Director.

I know because I asked him when the steel mill

plant thing was kind of emerging and we asked the governor candidates about that um and rob sand said something to the effect of wanting to hear from the people who who he trusts in the state night and i asked him do you believe debbie durham is one of those and he equitably and without even hesitating millisecond said yes absolutely so i say that as a background to say like there's an example of someone who i could see him

being on, because he's not going to keep on McKenzie, though, as Department of Education Director, probably not going to keep on Craig Paulson at HHS.

But there are some spots in some places where I could see it, and Debbie Durham is a prime example of that.

Now, I don't know that that will happen, because my personal sense, and again, this is just my view from the Chief Seats, Debbie Durham hasn't said this to me outright,

But she's ready to retire.

So she may politely, even if asked, politely say thank you, but no thanks.

I'm ready to go back to Sioux City and sip on my five o'clock cocktail every day.

But that is an example of someone who I could see Rob saying, trying to keep it around.

And to your point, it'll be interesting to see how many of those types of efforts he makes given the way he talked during the campaign.

You can't have a cocktail in Des Moines?

You have to be you have to be back in Sousa.

I guess I'm assuming I'm assuming she'll move back to Sousa City, but maybe I shouldn't assume that.

You could have a cocktail now.

That's true, and it's five o'clock somewhere.

You don't have to wait until five o'clock.

I didn't know he had to be in Woodbury County for that.

I thought prohibition, but now I had been told months ago, and again my seats are cheaper than yours, but I had been told that Director Durham had indicated

that it did not matter who won the governorship.

She did not intend to, in essence, start over with a new governor.

However, you can say, you know, things at a certain time and it may be different, especially if you've got some of these big deals and it is necessary for someone with the expertise to shepherd it for even if it's another year or 18 months.

Exactly.

And we actually asked it during the special session when she came and testified on the steel plant tax incentives, and she did a little gaggle with porters afterwards.

And at the end of that, someone just kind of asked her, are you planning to be around after the election?

And she basically told us what you said there, Jeff, which is there's going to be a different governor regardless.

of who it is, so I'm not expecting to be around.

And I believe her.

But like you said, you never know.

Our sense also was she didn't expect to be around in 2022 either, but I think Governor Reynolds asked her to stay on, and she agreed to.

So sometimes the best laid plans are just that until the state's chiefs of executive ask you for some help.

Maybe maybe just a little longer

Our people lastly you're there in Des Moines Your office is in the shadow of the Capitol.

You've been in contact with all these folks Is there a general sense of well?

All right, we'll just dust ourselves off and here we go in other words I'm sure Democrats to some degree are emboldened.

However, they can't go too far I'm just wondering or is it a sense of well

We're we're past it.

You know, I mean, it's not much hangover, not much celebration.

Just OK, give us the week.

We'll be back at it next week kind of thing.

Yeah, I think it's a little bit more of the latter.

And I think part of that is, you know, there was a sense that in this governor's race that it was leading that way for a long time.

So all the way back to last session, you know, you would hear from Republican legislators

Um, ways that they were preparing for this possibility, um, almost resigned to it.

Sounds a little strong, but, but not far from that.

Like they knew that this was distinctly possible, um, that far back.

And so I don't think there's any huge shock to anybody's system right now and any sudden, um,

you know, plans forming or sudden realizations.

I think this is something they've been gearing up for for a long time now.

The only question to that, as I say that out loud, is I should probably asterisk and say,

We have not heard anything yet that rules out the possibility of one more special section in the lame duck session if they feel like they want to change a few things about the governor's office legislatively before a Democrat comes in.

I haven't heard that it's going to happen, but I just keep hearing that it's not an impossibility yet.

Okay, well that leads to the fact that that's even being bandied about.

It falls Aaron Murphy in the same category of all these people asking Senator Charles Grassley Well now that the governor will be a Democrat are you gonna resign so Kim Reynolds can appoint your replacement and of course in typical and I mean this in a good way typical Grassley fashion He looks at you like you've got two heads because he's

no I got

elected for six years.

Why why would I leave?

I my sense is if he were to do that and and

The senator keeps his own counsel if he were to do that, so that Rob Sand does not appoint his replacement.

That's going to fall in the same category of shenanigans of a special session to limit the power of governor elect Rob Sand when he takes office.

That's going to have huge backlash with the public because they already distrust all these people on a good day.

I absolutely couldn't agree more.

In fact, I had a conversation with a fellow reporter about exactly this within the last day or two here since the results.

And again, my view of that is, and again, remind listeners, I haven't heard that this is for sure happening.

I've just heard that there's discussion about it as a possibility.

If it were to happen, look.

This is the exact kind of thing, as we've talked about, that Rob Sand ran on against as an example of what the two-party system creates and the cravenness for power and authority and hanging onto it by any means necessary.

He just ran on that and won by 11 points.

So to go do something like that, I think I agree with you.

Jeff, I think would open the door to a huge backlash and be able to start his reelection campaign before he even gets into office.

Well, we do overlap cycles, but that would be that would be strong.

It

just

smacks of of smoke filled rooms and cigars and all of this.

And I just don't think that's going to.

Yeah.

Yeah, I agree and I think that would be maybe the reason it doesn't happen is if I mean if you look at the election results and you look at the exit polls that would be the exact kind of thing that voters just Rejected the whole full-throatedly

Well, that certainly sounds like common sense, which means there's every chance you'll be Balancing your Thanksgiving dinner with a special session.

Oh well

Always great information remind us the daily e-newsletter.

What is it called and where do you go to get it?

Yeah, it's called the on Iowa politics newsletter And you can sign up for it just right at the gazette comm and we have a newsletters tab there in the menu Mine as well as other ones you might find interesting as well And it pops in your inbox every morning and keeps you up to date.

There's never dull moments in Iowa politics.

That's the

one thing i learned very quickly a long time ago so always always something interesting going on in your inbox each morning

and the cost is

absolutely free if we're gonna double next year uh so get in now

well inflation

you can yeah exactly

oh i'm glad we can still laugh about it because

the alternative is too depressing

It's really the

way I go through life these days.

Aaron Murphy

is the Des Moines bureau chief for the Gazette and is so kind to favor us with his time for these conversations.

Rest up and I hope, I mean, I always enjoy talking to him, do it anytime, but I hope we're not talking about a special session.

I hope we're talking about a regular session come first of the year.

I agree.

I'm with you on that one.

This is where Iowa comes to talk.

News Talk 1540 KXEL.

I am pleased to welcome now on the news line AJ Francia.

Mr. Francia is head of product at prediction.com.

Mr. Francia, good morning and thanks for taking the time, sir.

Good morning.

Thanks for having me, Jeff.

All right.

This conversation is going to be about quote unquote prediction markets.

Now that's a broad topic, a broad title because

Prediction.com is different from some of these others.

So I want to just start at the basic point so everybody listening, we're all on the same page using the same language.

What is a prediction market?

Yeah, a prediction market is a market where you can bet on certain outcomes.

So for example, you can bet on Josh Turek.

You could have bet on Josh Turek becoming senator.

You could have bet on Rob Sand becoming governor.

You could also bet

on the Philadelphia Sixers winning their next NBA game.

So there's a variety of different outcomes that you can bet on.

Alright, now I have seen some news coverage recently where some of these entities don't want to be known as betting sites.

They want to be known as markets for trading much like the stock market.

Tell me if this is this a split between different people within your business genre within the industry or Is that is that a distinction that that doesn't really have any merit?

No, it's a very important distinction state regulators across the United States want to classify prediction markets as more closely related to

sports books and companies like FanDuel and DraftKings more akin to the betting you've described, whereas federal regulators under the CFCC actually see prediction markets as more akin to stock markets, future contracts, more of a traditional financial market.

And so I think that's an extremely important distinction that's playing itself out in the courts currently.

and I'm glad you phrased it that way because it seemed to me that this is an industry that all of a sudden sort of popped up and I say that knowing that years of development go into these things but in terms of the the popular culture hey look we have these things but it takes a while as an industry develops to figure out just what it is and to get your arms around it if you go to prediction.com I'm seeing all manner of

Wagering or prediction on NFL and college games right there because again Was sports where this really started for most of these sites?

Yeah, it's it's a really good question the history of prediction markets actually dates back to Iowa So the University of Iowa's Iowa election mark electronic markets from

Decades ago began taking bets on elections and the CFTC actually chose not to enforce traditional regulations on the Iowa electronic markets They gave them a no action letter and so really that was the root I would say the root idea that spawned all a market in Calci and Holly market in particular took off during the 2024 election cycle and I would say Alshi really

started taking off in 2025 once it was able to list sports contracts or once it began to allow trading or betting on sports.

And so I would say just that's a very short summarized history of prediction markets in the United States.

And you're right, we are familiar with the folks at the University of Iowa, the political science department, and it was sort of like a dollar.

Right.

I mean, it was like, ah, you know, we're, we're using, we could have used the kernels of corn, right?

It wasn't really designed to do anything other than be a statistical measure.

This has taken it to a much different level.

So yes, we have heard of things like calcium and poly market and all manner of things.

You are a head of product at prediction.com.

What's different about prediction.com as opposed to some of those other folks.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So essentially we're, I like to call us the Google flights or the Expedia prediction markets.

So in the same way someone might use Google flights or Expedia to compare prices from different airlines like Spirit or American or Frontier, someone would go to prediction.com to compare prices from how cheap all the market predicted or other prediction markets.

So we're just an aggregator, just like aggregators exist in other

industries.

The polling industry has gotten a bad rap and some would say deservedly so, speaking of something that was born in Iowa with George Gallup as well.

And I'm not sure we are we proud these days of that?

Well, George has been gone a long time, so we'll just let that sit over here.

But the polling is very different and to be fair, it used to be.

If you had a 319 area code, it's because you had a phone tied to a wall at a location in the 319 area code.

And now area codes mean nothing because people have these personal devices.

That's changed, you know, that and so many other things that changed the polling.

All right.

So in the absence of reliable polling, let's say, how did what limited polling there was on some of these Iowa races?

How did that measure up?

With what prediction.com was able to lay out there for anyone who looked at it on election day

Yeah, we found that in the Iowa both the governor and Senate elections that polling and prediction markets were largely aligned leading up to election day For example with the Josh Turpur race polls largely had it as a toss up There's maybe a call within the last five days that had Turrick ahead prediction.com had Josh Turrick at 52% a couple days

ahead of election day.

So there was definitely a slight lane to Turk, which is largely consistent with the results we saw on election night.

So I think the biggest value add for prediction markets relative to polls is their real-time nature.

So for example, by the time polls close in Iowa at 8 p.m.

central time, prediction markets found that the odds of Josh Turk winning the election were 86%.

And for Rob Sand, it was roughly 97%.

And so

Compare that to, you know, four, eight, 12 years ago, and you know, how long we'd have to wait for the AP to call races.

Prediction markets have really left people on the East Coast to get some sleep early on election

day.

Well, since I mentioned Gallup, the big George Gallup, quote unquote, failure was in 1948, Harry Truman defeating Governor Thomas Dewey.

But as Gallup looked at it, he realized his mistake was they stopped polling a month before election day.

And so again, to that point, the closer you are in time, the better the results.

That's common sense as you think about it now.

But again, the public opinion polls always have a lag just because of the volume, computation, time, et cetera.

When you're talking about a prediction market, you're talking not only about real time, as you mentioned, but people who have enough confidence to, in essence, put their money where their mouth is, correct?

That's exactly right.

So, I mean, when you look at how prediction markets were so quickly able to essentially figure out who's going to win the Iowa race before polls even close, these traders are looking at information from everywhere.

They're not just looking at polls, they're looking at real-time results that are coming in from Florida.

They saw the Senate race there really tightened up closer than expected, and they saw some of the other races on the East Coast tighten up closer than expected.

They used that information to then extrapolate, hey,

This Iowa race, it's going to lean towards Democrats, because nationwide sentiment is leaning towards Democrats given the early results that we're seeing from some of these elections, like the elections in Florida, for example.

So yes, the real-time nature of prediction markets is a big factor.

I want to remind the audience we're speaking with AJ Francia, Mr. Francia is head of product at prediction.com and prediction.com is a data aggregator from various prediction markets and he joins us live on News Talk 1540 KXEL.

What potential exists from an economic standpoint

for these prediction markets going forward.

In other words, is this a viable business?

Is this something that folks are really looking at to see how it matures and if there's a way to further monetize it or what?

I think the great, I think there are two big value ads for prediction markets for broader society.

One, it's disseminating information in real time similar for these events that everyone cares about, whether

The elections are a great example for this in the U.S., but there are elections happening worldwide all the time.

There's an upcoming general election in Spain, for example, and prediction markets allow information about that election to be distributed everywhere in real time, which is a good value add.

The other value add, to some extent, is hedging.

So you can imagine a situation where if there's a bar off that wants to offer a promo like, hey, we want to offer free

free drinks to, you know, if the Sixers win by over 20 points, there might be a bar in Philadelphia that offers a promo.

They might actually go ahead and place a bet on the opposing team that's opposing the Sixers.

So that either way, they either have to give out free drinks to the Sixers if the Sixers win by a certain amount, or they get money back by hedging and placing a bet on the other team on Calci or Polymarket.

So there are also certain hedging situations like that that

Are valuable from a predation market standpoint.

I'm scrolling down the site and I'm seeing already Well, you still have one up where you're pointing out the Mississippi US Senate winner because again that race has not been called but folks are already Contemplating and surveying this data for the 28 presidential election not only the general election, but also who will be the nominee A variety of political questions that that get asked

Is there a danger that someone might throw a bunch of money on one of these sides in an issue?

Let's keep it with elections.

Somebody puts a bunch of money in one of these prediction markets on a certain candidate with the intention of sort of skewing the results.

Does that then lead to potentially a self-fulfilling prophecy?

In other words, if I hear that the prediction markets are all going a certain direction,

might that actually help affect the outcome of the situation

that is certainly a risk with prediction markets and i think if there's someone with a lot of money who wants to push a narrative saying like hey this candidate is up ten percent on prediction markets let me put in a lot of money to push that narrative that's certainly a possibility but the way against that actually is that markets particularly prediction markets tend to correct themselves so for example someone wanted to push

this narrative with Lane, who is going up against Rob Sand, that person would have had to put, likely, hundreds of thousands of dollars to tilt the narrative in favor of the Republican.

And really, that's a lot of money to put up, because on the other side, people are going to notice, like, wow, because if the market shifts in that direction, that also implies that you can bet on Rob Sam for better ops.

And so people will kind of come in like, wow, these odds don't really make much sense.

Let me put more money on Rob Sam.

And that will auto correct the market, because when you manipulate markets, prices look off, and people bet in a certain way that corrects the market again.

How did you get involved with this?

I've always been.

very interested in prediction markets, starting with the 2020 election, actually, when the Democratic primary, when Jim Clyburn endorsed Joe Biden just before the South Carolina primary, and prediction markets.

After that endorsement, the prediction market odds for Joe Biden skyrocketed, and Joe Biden ended up becoming the nominee, obviously, but other sports betting sites hadn't updated their odds.

They hadn't realized that in real time.

the probabilities have changed.

So there was some money to be made there and I identified some opportunities there where quite a bit of money could be made across different websites that hadn't necessarily updated their betting odds to take into account what prediction markets had already taken account, which is that the Jim Clyburn endorsement was an important one for that election.

What's the business model for prediction.com?

I get the point of being an aggregator, but how is it that you folks are able to be viable?

uh, marshaling this data from the calcium and poly markets, et cetera, of the world.

It's a great question.

So we actually have data feeds that we sell, uh, to people.

So if someone wants access to real time prediction market data feeds, they can get that from us and become a subscriber.

Also, if people, you know, click on one of our promo codes, we get a bonus from if someone uses one of the promo codes that are on our site.

And so, yeah, those are the two.

primary revenue streams for us.

In essence, it's sort of like I'm looking at all manner of things on the screen right now, and it's all free.

But if I want detailed data, additional data, synthesized data, that's where I can purchase it from you at a premium, correct?

That's essentially right.

Yeah, that's correct.

This is fascinating stuff because again, I referenced it.

It seemed quaint when the Iowa Policy Department was doing a little prediction thing and you could just imagine, you know, here's a quarter kind of thing.

This has now become just a huge, huge industry for all manner of things.

Let me exit the conversation with this.

If you had to predict

No pun intended of where this might go.

Is it going to be more toward regulated like a betting side or regulated like a market?

Is there is it or is that is that a a premature question to see exactly how the industry is going to land?

Yeah, a lot of if you read up on what a lot of legal experts in the industry are saying they think it's going to go to the Supreme

Court.

So it comes down to

What is the makeup of the Supreme Court at the time when this case makes it there?

And also, it becomes a very philosophical question of who has the right to regulate prediction markets.

Is it state regulators or is it the CFTC, a federal regulatory agency?

So there's a lot of bigger questions about state power versus federal power as well, not just in the context of prediction markets or betting markets.

So it'll be a fascinating case to watch and follow.

Well, then look at me sitting here saying, why would either get to regulate it?

Why have government in any way involved?

Why can't you just run these things as your own operations?

Yeah, and I think there's a case to be made there where, hey, I want to place a bet on the sixers at a bar, and I want to place it with someone who's sitting next to me at a bar.

We shake hands.

$5, $10 are exchanged.

So softly, there shouldn't be anything.

wrong with that, right?

And that's the argument for prediction markets.

The flip side of that argument, though, is we're already regulating a lot of these financial markets, whether they be options markets or soft markets, like the S&P 500, the NASDAQ.

So having prediction markets be regulated consistent with these existing financial markets does make sense as

well.

AJ Francia of prediction.com, prediction.com.

Fun conversation, really interesting stuff, and I'm so glad that you folks made us aware that this was something you'd like to talk about.

Come back again if you would.

Really had fun.

We'd love to do that.

Thank you so much, Jeff.

All right, take good care in A.J.

Francia of prediction.com.

Join us live on the news line on News Talk 1540, KXEL, where Iowa comes to talk.

In this week's business profile, we'll introduce you to Anthony Williams, president and CEO of the Q Casino and Resort in Dubuque.

It's a growing business and economic driver in the region, but as I learned, its mission and ownership is unique.

Q Casino and Resort is just that, right?

We are now a full integrated casino resort located here in Dubuque, Iowa.

And specifically, we are located in what we consider to be a special place here on Schmidt Island.

And so, yes, we are located on an island.

We are owned and operated by the Dubuque Racing Association, which is a 501C4.

We were created in 1985.

And we're one of only two gaming organizations in the country, for that matter, established to run for the benefit of the local community, right?

And so what that means is, after operating costs, 100% of remaining proceeds, we return to the community.

Roughly a third goes to charitable giving, a third goes to the city of Dubuque, and a third to reinvestment here on Schmidt Island.

Since 1985, they kind of put a bow around that.

We've generated more than 1.18 billion in tri-state economic impact, right?

We've contributed over 257 million to the city of Dubuque, and we've made more than 67, just under 67.5 million in charitable distributions.

And most recently this year, right, in 2026, our core grants drew

152 applications requested more than just over seven and a half million, which is one of the most competitive cycles we've seen in recent history.

As we continue to think about our growth story and certainly our trajectory in the future, as the resort grows, so does our capacity to reinvest, which makes organizational success and community benefit a single goal rather than two competing priorities.

And this is what I think is interesting for folks who are familiar with other casinos and other areas of the state.

For example, I am based in Waterloo.

We have the Blackhawk Gaming Association.

It receives money for distribution from the local casino.

Your situation is different because you're all integrated with the Racing Association owning the actual casino and the related properties on Schmidt Island.

Absolutely.

the genius behind the the whole establishment here from my perspective of courses and others that look this is a situation where you've got really a one-of-a-kind operating model that is truly for the benefit of the community.

Throughout its 40 year history you know we recently celebrated 40 years.

Racing is what we did.

Today we're more entertainment driven, right?

And the whole idea here is to continue to grow in a way that it's not just revenues.

Of course, that's very important, but we also want notoriety, right?

Like I can appreciate as the president and CEO opportunities like today where I get a chance to tell the story.

Because it is such a unique story and I may say to your point it is different than what folks may remember in other words 40 years ago the casino had a different name there were different Properties associated.

It's a very different area of Dubuque actually in total because of the development of convention centers, etc So you've got a very different footprint

broadly speaking than you did before.

For those who are not aware, what's there at Schmidt Island that you have many things that are fairly new?

Absolutely.

So we were mostly known for racing and then gaming and we had a hotel, but there's been this essential shift.

uh, here over the last year in terms of, you know, moving from treating our amenities as separate businesses to really treating them as one integrated destination.

Right.

And, and so I see Q casino on resort is becoming the anchor of a true destination, not just a game and property with a hotel attached.

Most recently we delivered three

brand experience defining amenities here on site on the island.

We opened the new key hotel, which is an Hilton branded boutique resort here.

And we also opened the Lock 11 restaurant, which is our world famous rooftop restaurant.

I say world famous now because it's just going to be hard to match.

the level of sophistication and certainly the views as we sit right here on the tri-state border up against Illinois and Wisconsin and the sweeping views of the Dubuque bluffs and of course the Mississippi River.

I mean it's just it's an unparalleled experience and then last but certainly not least

We debuted our new Backwaters amphitheater, which is dependent on how we set up configurations, can be anywhere from an eight to 10,000 capacity amphitheater that sits right on site here bordering the Mississippi River.

And so when you think about now becoming this full integrated resort experience, these are the most recent amenities that have been added to the tune of just over $115 million in terms of investment, which is pretty significant.

I was going to say that doesn't come cheap.

And so at the same time you've put in that kind of an investment, you're still delivering

as a nonprofit for the folks in the community.

So that suggests that there's an appetite in the tri-state region for what it is that you're trying to do.

Absolutely and so again the two grow together right as the business has grown and the ability to generate additional revenues and flow through so does our ability to be able to issue grants right and so you know most recently like I said we awarded 1.5 million in grants to over 50 organizations.

also recently contributed $8.5 million to the city of Dubuque.

And our motto is built so that as the resort grows, our capacity to reinvest grows with it.

This is not an easy line of business.

The gaming industry, the hospitality industry, the tourism industry, you've merged them all into one.

But this is not an easy business because everybody, first of all, thinks they can do it.

And second of all, you've got all manner of competition.

It's hard to stay current, stay relevant and actually grow and thrive.

No, it's not, it's not an easy business, but I got to tell you in all of my years of experience, the one thing that I've learned is, you know, at the end of the day, it's about customer experience.

That customer experience first starts internally with our employees, right?

We have to take care of our employees who are actually out on the front lines out there servicing and taking care of our guests.

As a leader of an organization, it's important that I'm thinking about today in terms of what the business is, but we still have to continue to think about the future.

And that has to come by way of, you know, having a strategic mindset, close collaboration with our board of directors, right?

And so that's the one thing I didn't mention.

We are governed by a board of directors, right, for the DRA.

And we work very closely in terms of establishing, you know, what are the strategic priorities?

And then, of course, the board serves in the chief governance capacity of making sure that, you know, the company is healthy and headed in the right direction.

Coming up here in 2027, because of the growth and the things that we've experienced, I'm happy to announce we'll be launching our first strategic plan for the business.

I've worked very closely with our board of directors to establish

our strategic pillars.

It's just really important for us as we move forward to continue to make sure that we are positioning DRA both for today, but certainly for the future.

And, you know, I'd like to see, you know, as, as legacy and all those things come to fruition.

We're just setting it up for another 40 years plus.

Now you've been there just a little more than a year.

What was your background and what appealed to you about this position in Dubuque?

My background, I've been in the gaming business now just under 30 years or so, and Las Vegas native, so born and raised in the business there in the entertainment capital of the world, gaming capital of the world.

And I was an operations major, if you will, by heart, spent the last 17 years with MGM resorts in various executive capacities.

And what was interesting is,

you know when this opportunity surfaced as I started to really educate myself around the operating model and this not for profit but certainly for the benefit of the community and how there's a development arm and there's the operating arm and then of course you know there's the municipal ties to the city the fact that I had most recently concluded a term as a planning commissioner for the city of Las Vegas a lot of the

requirements of the role in terms of growth and the community aspect really spoke to me because I had fun doing a lot of those things.

I served on the commission for four years and then the last year I was actually vice chair and once the opportunity came I resigned and decided to make the move across the country.

But here's the deal ultimately.

Jeff, I love the opportunity to be able to come in and pick up where things left off, finish off three brand defining projects.

And then there's all the pieces and parts operationally that you have to pull together because we're not who we were yesterday, right?

And as we think about what it takes to really tie together all the different operational segments of the business, there's your culture, there's operating discipline around the financials, there's how you market, which also speaks to another exciting segment in the business, you know, the way we marketed.

a casino and a hotel which is Hilton branded that all changes now and so as we go out now to speak to our customers we're inviting them to the island but we're also laying out for them this is exactly your total experience right so we now offer a total experience on the island.

Taking a step back and looking at all of those things and saying to myself wow here's an opportunity for me to go and have the ability to influence

a business that is on the verge of really exploding, and I believe that, especially now that I've been here just over 15 months, I had to do

it.

Well, because of the uniqueness of the opportunity, because of the foundation that had been laid, it's not a matter that they brought you in to rescue some failing operation, which is often the case when there is a change in leadership.

at some organization.

So you've now got this new plan that'll roll out next year.

Obviously, you're looking three, five, 10 years down the road.

What can we expect?

This is an awful lot to take in right now, but your mind's working about what's next.

Well, I think what you can expect is for us to really be able to engender this mindset of the total

experience, right?

The total island experience.

What's nice about the diversification here on the island and certainly in our businesses, customers get a chance to really pick and decide what's the highlight of my visit now as I'm looking to plan, you know, time to come down to Dubuque and visit the QQC, you know, and resort.

Some folks are going to come down for the entertainment.

Some folks are going to come down for the family entertainment center, right?

Some folks are going to come down for the gaming aspect.

But then there's also this this segment of business, which I haven't touched on, which is we're going to really amplify who we are and what we offer to that business trap, right?

And we're in a position again with the views and the amenities here on the island to also offer ancillary packages like weddings.

parties Bar Mitzvahs with views again that are going to be unparalleled throughout the tri-state region.

And so that's what you can expect here in the next probably 12 to 24 months as we

bring all these things together and we start to think about what NEX is needed.

I'm going to be very intentional as the president and CEO in terms of working with the board to figure out, and we all will, together, what is the next right strategic move in terms of growth for us to do here on the island.

And I'll give you a little sneak peek.

You'll probably see something along the lines of still extending in the area of

supporting population growth, right?

And continuing that economic engine growth.

I want Cucasino and Resort and the DRA to be the organization that other communities point to when they ask, what does it look like to run gaming and hospitality for a community, not just in it?

You can come up with a slogan, but you can also live that quote slogan as.

the message and the driving force and it sounds like you didn't sit there one day and say we need something catchy.

You sat there and said we need something that everybody can buy into that really tells them what we are.

Absolutely.

Absolutely, which is, you know, going back to the onset of the conversation, why I was so appreciative of the opportunity to have the chance to come on and speak with you today, because from my perspective, we need to be able to tell our story to a much broader

audience.

Anthony Williams, president and CEO of the Q Casino and Resort in Dubuque.

More online at qcasinoandresort.com.

We connected via Zoom on Friday, October 24th.

News Talk 1540 KXCL, where Iowa comes to talk.

The 2026 Iowa Family Business Conference will be in Pella next week on Wednesday.

Many prominent family businesses will be represented this morning.

We're going to get the details from Dan Binkin, Director of the University of Northern Iowa's Family Business Center, which is hosting the event.

Thanks for being with us, Dan.

Hey, thank you so much

for having me.

Thank you very much for the time.

Appreciate being able to talk a little bit about family-owned companies and in our conference coming up.

We're excited about it.

We've got a record number of attendees this year, and we're still taking registrations from folks.

So if you're interested in coming, go to unifamilybusinesscenter.com and register.

We'd love to have you with us.

Well, it looks like it's going to be a full day next Wednesday from 9 until 6.

How's the whole thing coming together when it comes to the programming?

Yeah, it's coming along great.

So our mission is about helping family-owned companies see paths forward in succession planning and ways to kind of practice good family governance to keep

family-owned companies, family-owned from one gen to the next.

And our conference reflects that.

So our conference is made up mostly of speakers from family-owned companies.

So you'll see folks from Bella Windows, Vermeer Manufacturing.

Paulson Electric, many others that will be talking about how they have done different things to strategize, like I said, family governance, succession, even topics like philanthropy, et cetera.

And so it very much functions as a conference of peers.

large peer to peer learning type of atmosphere is what we try to promote.

So rather than hearing from consultants and service providers, you're hearing from other families who have been where you maybe are going or where you are and that kind of thing is what our focus is.

Is the topic of succession, generational succession from one part of the family to another or from parent to child, whatever it might be?

Is that the biggest concern or the most common thing that's top of mind for these family companies?

I think so.

I think a lot of things relate to succession.

So if you use that as the umbrella topic, it covers a lot of ground that encompasses the different things that are on their mind.

Fair versus equal in the, you know, estate planning realm and the moving down of the company from one generation to the next is incredibly delicate and it can be conflictive.

And we're here to help family see ways to make that a smoother transition.

But yeah, succession is the big thing.

You know, there's some different stats out there Tim that say that only about one in three family businesses makes it to the third generation of ownership, right?

And in those stats if you ever hear them they actually account for business failures and financial issues.

The fact that most family-owned companies don't make it to the third generation isn't because they don't have a good business.

It's because the family and human issues

getting the way of things.

And so we're here to help provide a platform to talk about that.

We're talking with Dan Binkin, director of the University of Northern Iowa's Family Business Center.

The center is hosting the Iowa Family Business Conference.

It's the sixth one of those conferences.

And Dan, what about the Pella Corporation do you want to bring in?

What's unique about their story that you feel like folks who are attending are going to hear?

Yeah, they have a very unique story.

Nationally, they have a unique story.

Of course, the family business is based in Pella and has grown tremendously over the years.

And the Kuiper family originally started it, still owns it today.

And one governance rule they have as a family is that family members actually cannot work in the family business.

And so that's very unique compared to most any other family-owned company that we interact with.

And they also readily talk about, you know, that being where things are at now, but that governance changes and family changes.

And so that might need to adapt over time.

But I think that's a big thing for them is that uniqueness of how they have been able to do that over time.

and continue to be such an incredible pillar of economic development, not only in Pella, but across our state.

If they weren't locally owned, we would feel a pretty big hit from that.

And so it's a testament to their family of how they do things and how they run the business and how they

keep ownership and management separate.

And I think our families will hear a pretty cool story about that.

So I would say that's their uniqueness.

You mentioned Vermeer Corporation also in Pella.