Iowa Democratic gubernatorial candidates debated at the first of three debates to be held before the primary on June 5.

The next debate will be held on Wednesday and the final debate will be held on May 30 in Des Moines.

There are six Democratic candidates currently running for governor.

John Norris is a fifth generation Iowan, according to his website, and an expert in agriculture and low-carbon energy. He worked under both former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack as the Chair the Iowa Utilities Board and under President Barack Obama as the commissioner on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Cathy Glasson is a former intensive care unit nurse who started a union at the University of Iowa Hospital. Glasson calls herself the “bold progressive.”

Nate Boulton is a labor rights attorney and Iowa Senator from Des Moines. Boulton grew up in a union family from Columbus Junction, Iowa. As an attorney, he has taken former Governor Terry Branstad’s administration to the Iowa Supreme Court in a case over workers compensation and won.

Andy McGuire is a doctor from Waterloo, Iowa and the former chair of the Iowa Democratic Party from 2014 to 2016. McGuire got her degree from Creighton University and worked as a chief medical officer, focusing on the business portion of medicine.

Fred Hubbell is a former chairman of the Iowa-based clothing store, Younkers, and president of Equitable of Iowa, an Iowa-based insurance company. Hubbell later served as the chairman of the Iowa Power Fund, a commission tasked with allocating money to low-carbon and renewable energy.

Ross Wilburn is the diversity officer and the associate program director for Community and Economic Development for Iowa State University Extension and Outreach.

After the introductions and opening comments, they went into the issues and what they would do if elected governor.

All six candidates said the privatization of the Medicaid system in Iowa is the root issue in fully funding healthcare, with some even calling it “a disaster.”

Boulton, Glasson, Norris, McGuire and Hubbell all said the current administration should fund legislation it passed earlier this year to open and staff new care facilities around the state.

Where candidates disagreed on healthcare was the extent to which they would go to make healthcare a budget priority.

Glasson said she would like to reopen some of the care facilities and make sure they are state-of-the-art. She said she would focus on giving Iowan’s universal single payer healthcare on the state level.

Others, like Norris, said Iowa not having a children’s mental healthcare system was a “failure” that needs resolved.

On issues of sexual harassment, the candidates were almost unanimous in their condemning of the way things are currently handled.

“Reynolds has been mired with sexual harassment cases in her time and she says she is zero tolerance,” Glasson said.

Multiple candidates mentioned the need for a whistleblower process in government and the follow through from an independent third party investigation into every accusation.

McGuire said she had “felt the sting” of sexual harassment first hand. She added, “taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay for the shenanigans of elected officials,” in reference to the Kirsten Anderson case where the state had to pay $1.75 million.

Willburn gave examples of people who are “doing it right.”

“President (Wendy) Wintersteen at Iowa State University is requiring all staff to go through trainings to stop this sort of thing,” Willburn said. “We need to do the same.”

The recent passage of the so-called “fetal heartbeat bill” prompted a question about what the candidates would do in the meantime to help women in the state.

Each candidate said they would restore funding to Planned Parenthood and fight for a women’s right to choose.

“Choice is important for women,” Glasson said. “I have seen the medical consequences of what happens when women don’t have access to safe and legal abortions… The bill that passed was clearly unconstitutional.”

The candidates were asked in the case of a split government, how far would they go to fulfill their promises to restore collective bargaining rights to the state.

Glasson, McGuire and Willburn rejected part of the question saying they were optimistic the state could be a unified, Democrat-held government. In the case that it isn’t, they said they would do anything possible to restore bargaining rights.

“I would use the bully pulpit,” said McGuire about her main tool to push for that change.

She said the state is “overwhelmingly” in favor of unions and bargaining so she would tell voters who is stopping it from happening.

Some, like Boulton, said they would go further.

“I would do everything possible, not only to reverse those changes, but actually increase the voice of workers in the state,” said Boulton.

The candidates were asked how they would try and elect people in rural Iowa and get rural voters to vote for Democrats.

Boulton, Glasson and Willburn focused on workers rights, unions and healthcare in their answers.

Willburn said rural issues were workers issues and how he would find areas in common with people, mainly healthcare concerns, to bring Republican voters to vote for him.

Glasson and Boulton talked about their belief in the need for wage increases, with Glasson supporting an immediate $15 an hour, and supporting rural education and medical centers in an effort to revitalize rural economies.

Alternatively, McGuire, Hubbell and Norris said they would focus on ending tax giveaways, or tax cuts to large corporations like Apple and John Deere, they believe are hurting rural economies.

Specifically, Norris mentioned that 90 percent of income in the farming industry goes to corporate agribusiness, but the largest tax breaks are given to those same corporations rather than “the people who need it.”

Hubbell said the tax giveaways and tariffs are what is truly hurting the state’s rural economy; he would proactively try to make relationships with trading partners so “our crop prices aren’t dictated by those in DC.”

McGuire’s thoughts on it also included more “listening.”

“Last election we lost because we didn’t listen hard enough to voters,” she said. “One size does not fit all for rural communities so we need to sit down and listen.”