With midterm elections nearly a week away, local and state candidates gathered at the Story County Democrats office to meet with the volunteers who make their campaigns possible, and remind them of the Republican policies they oppose.

More than 25 volunteers and fellow candidates met at 6 p.m. Friday night to listen to speeches from Rob Sand and Tim Gannon, Democratic candidates for state auditor and secretary of agriculture, respectively.

Montana Gov. Steve Bullock also made an appearance. He’s been campaigning alongside Iowan Democratic candidates in the closing weeks to the election.

“[Gannon] is a farmer, and his opponent is a lobbyist for Monsanto,” Bullock said. “I don’t know what you all think, but I think a farmer ought to be secretary of agriculture.”

Bullock has been campaigning with Democrats in neighboring states in his spare time during midterms. In 2016 he was the only Democratic governor re-elected in a state won by Donald Trump.

“Both of these guys are great candidates,” Bullock said, referring to Sand and Gannon. “It’s important to remind folks in different states about the candidates that matter, and to make sure we’re talking to everyone, rural and urban.”

Sand criticized Mary Mosiman, the current state auditor, for not keeping a watchful enough eye on taxpayer dollars, particularly concerning the privatization of Medicaid.

“A lot of people have been left behind after the privatization of Medicaid,” Sand said. “I’ve heard stories of disabled children growing out of their walkers. They have to crawl around their own homes because their Medicaid no longer covers enough of those kinds of costs.”

Sand said Mosiman listened to 48 of these “horror stories” before doing an audit earlier this year, the results of which won’t be completed until after the midterms are finished.

“Forty-eight alarms and she still only did an audit after a state representative requested one,” Sand said. “The only person who could’ve found something out did nothing for years. Make me auditor and we’ll see some subpoenas.”

Gannon took the floor after Sand and railed against recent trade disputes in Washington. He said Trump’s trading policies were hurting Iowa farmers, and the rest of Iowans as a consequence.

“When farmers aren’t doing well the small businesses that depend on farmers don’t do well either,” Gannon said. “These trade disputes could mean between one billion and two billion in revenue losses for Iowa farmers.”

At the event, Herman Quirmbach, associate professor of economics at Iowa State and Democratic candidate for senator, warned about the effects Republican policies could have on Iowa’s economy.

“[Democrats] want good, affordable education and job training for everyone,” Quirmbach said. “So much of the Ames economy is dependent on the campus… we can’t keep cutting education funding.”

Volunteer Colleen Martin-Herrin listened earnestly as the candidates spoke. She spent much of her time looking up from her station off to the side of the room, folding hundreds of campaign shirts for Democratic congressional candidate J.D. Scholten.

“I really became political 2 years ago,” Martin-Herrin said. “There’s a lot at stake with climate change and corruption, I felt I had to step up.”

Martin-Herrin spends most of her spare time at the Story County Democrats office doing phone banking, shirt folding and driving people to the voting booths.

“I try to to fill in wherever I can,” Martin-Herrin said. 

Martin-Herrin praised candidates like Sand and Scholten for their honesty and ability to speak to multiple generations. She said she thought Sand was a particular good fit for state auditor given his history as a prosecutor for the Iowa attorney general, where he helped uncover the biggest lottery scandal in U.S. history.

“It’s very encouraging to see the energy and intellectual understanding of these people,” Martin-Herrin said. “People like Sand can really heal and gain the trust of Iowans again. He’s not afraid to expose things that may be uncomfortable to hear about.”