A key Congressional race just got turned upside down.
Democrats are scrambling into damage control mode.
And that’s because one Democrat got caught flat-footed after a dark scandal from her past exploded
The Ad and What It Claims
Democrat Sarah Trone Garriott, who is challenging incumbent Republican Iowa Representative Zach Nunn (R-IA), portrays herself as a mother focused on protecting children and families in her latest campaign ad.
The ad features images of Garriott with her family and two sons as she emphasizes her role as a mother and public school parent, while a voice-over of Garriott claims her record is being taken out of context.
“I’m a mom with two kids in Iowa public schools. Their education and safety literally keep me up at night, so when my opponent cherry-picks and twists my record, I have to set the record straight,” Garriott stated. She then addresses transgender issues, stating, “I’m Sarah Trone Garriott, and I oppose letting men in women’s locker rooms and let parents, not politicians, make decisions for their kids.”
“I approve this message because politicians have become too extreme on these issues and I’ll always put kids and families first.”
That sounds reassuring. Except the roll call record doesn’t back it up.
What the Votes Actually Show
In 2023, Garriott voted against a bill that would prohibit “persons from entering single and multiple occupancy restrooms or changing areas and other facilities in elementary and secondary schools that do not correspond with the person’s biological sex.”
The following year, Trone Garriott also voted against S.F. 482, legislation that required Iowa elementary and secondary schools to designate multiple-occupancy restrooms and locker rooms for use by people of the same biological sex.
Two separate bills. Two separate votes. Both times she voted no on protecting girls’ private spaces in school.
In 2022, Trone Garriott also voted against H.F. 2416, legislation that required any interscholastic or intercollegiate athletic teams sponsored by Iowa schools to be designated as male, female, or coeducational and prohibited men from joining women’s teams.
That’s three votes. And she’s now running an ad telling Iowa parents she’s on their side on these exact issues.
“Sarah Trone Garriott had the same opportunity twice, and voted no both times, including against protections for girls’ sports and locker rooms. Now she’s running ads telling Iowa parents she agrees with Zach. Nobody runs away from a record they’re proud of. Trone Garriott is trying to rewrite hers because she knows Iowa voters won’t like what they see,” Nunn campaign manager Brendan Duffy told the Washington Examiner.
Hard to argue with that logic.
“Sarah Trone Garriott says ‘politicians are too extreme on these issues,’ and she’s a perfect example,” said NRCC Spokeswoman Emily Tuttle.
“Her record is too extreme, too dangerous, and too out of touch for Iowa.”
The Broader Pattern of Persona-Shifting
The locker room reversal isn’t the first time Garriott’s public image has looked dramatically different depending on the audience she’s playing to.
The Daily Caller previously reported on a video in which Garriott, speaking at the Iowa Secular Summit in July 2023, described navigating her identity as a Lutheran minister and a state legislator, at one point suggesting she figures out which version of herself to be based on “who’s paying me.”
That kind of candor about identity-shifting is one thing at a secular conference. It lands differently when the same candidate is now running a family-values ad in a competitive swing district, claiming she opposes the very policies she voted to protect.
Even before Trone Garriott captured the Democrat nomination to run in the district, Republicans sought to highlight parts of her record that seem to show she has championed positions farther left than the campaign she’s currently running. Many have bashed a Muslim prayer she offered up on the Iowa Senate floor and how, as a Lutheran minister, she officiated a satanic wedding.
None of that is cherry-picking. It’s her record.
“Even Sarah Trone Garriott’s handlers realize her radical record and insane history of woke statements is completely unelectable in Iowa. No amount of false ads or consultant lies will hide the truth about the Wicked Witch of Woke and her sinister trans-for-all obsession,” Zach Kraft, a spokesperson for the Republican National Committee, said in a statement to Fox News Digital.
Vice President JD Vance made the same point during a campaign stop in Iowa for Nunn earlier this year. “His opponent voted to push biological males in girls’ sports as early as kindergarten. She was voting against banning gender transition surgeries for minors,” Vance said.
Leagues face a binary choice here. One measure passed in 2023 bars elementary and secondary schools from allowing someone to use a bathroom that does not correspond with their biological sex, while the other, enacted in 2022, set sports team eligibility by biological sex for school and college competition. If you vote against those protections, you are voting to allow biological males into girls’ spaces. The vote is the vote. Calling it cherry-picking doesn’t change the roll call.
And if any league or institution bans biological males from women’s spaces, it is effectively admitting that biological sex is the relevant category, not gender identity. Trone Garriott voted twice to prevent that protection from applying to Iowa schoolgirls, and now she’s running an ad claiming the opposite. Voters are being asked to ignore what she actually did in favor of what she’s saying today.
Nunn won the swing district by 4 points in 2024 after eking out a 2,000-vote win in 2022. President Donald Trump carried the seat by a similar 4-point margin in 2024.
That margin is tight enough that Garriott’s team clearly believes a rebrand on locker rooms could move enough suburban voters to flip the seat. But the rebrand only works if nobody checks the record. Republicans are checking the record.
Nunn, a father of six children, five of them being daughters, understands the importance of protecting girls’ sports and private spaces, and the importance of letting parents make decisions for their children.
That’s not a talking point. That’s a father who voted the right way when it counted, running against a candidate who voted the wrong way twice and is now hoping Iowa parents don’t notice.
The campaign ad doesn’t change the legislative record. It just makes the gap between what Garriott says and what Garriott does impossible to ignore.
Sources: Daily Caller; Fox News Digital; Washington Examiner; Townhall; NRCC; Iowa GOP
