Kim Reynolds

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds criticizes Biden over inflation, crime in GOP response. Reynolds mostly stuck to domestic issues but faulted Biden for a "too little, too ...

"It's important to appreciate that the risk is just as high as the reward," said Brendan Buck, a former House Republican leadership aide. The speakers from the opposing party get to introduce themselves to a national audience who may have never heard of them. "She's really adhering to the Republican playbook where we're getting copy-and-pasted bills rammed through and passed in the state of Iowa," said Deidre DeJear, a Democratic candidate for governor. Reynolds, 62, described herself as a governor, "a mom and grandmother of 11 who's worried our country is on the wrong track." Reynolds is bound to be on the short list of running mates for the 2024 Republican presidential nominee. Reynolds has opposed mask mandates in schools, styling herself as a parents advocate.

These are Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds' prepared remarks for her response to Joe Biden's State of the Union.

I encourage this President to do the same. Republicans may not have the White House. But we’re doing what we can to fill the leadership vacuum. I was attacked by the left; I was attacked by the media. What happened—and is still happening—to our children over the last two years is unconscionable. With Texas and Arizona leading the way, I, along with Republican governors from several states have sent resources to the border. And we actually listened to the science, especially with kids in masks and kids in schools. Families also have every right to live in a safe and secure community. But we honored your freedoms and saw right away that lockdowns and school closures came with their own significant costs; that mandates weren’t the answer. The President tried to paint a different picture tonight, but his actions over the last twelve months don’t match the rhetoric. But we shouldn’t ignore what happened in the run-up to Putin’s invasion. When I took the oath of office five years ago, I promised Iowans that I would never lose sight of who I was working for. We would pass in the yard as he was coming home and I was leaving to work evenings at the local grocery store.

Good evening. I'm Kim Reynolds, Governor of the great state of Iowa. Like you, I just watched the President's address. I listened as the governor of our ...

I encourage this President to do the same. Republicans may not have the White House. But we’re doing what we can to fill the leadership vacuum. What  happened—and is still happening—to our children over the last two years is unconscionable. I was attacked by the left; I was attacked by the media. With Texas and Arizona leading the way, I, along with Republican governors from several states have sent resources to the border. And we actually listened to the science, especially with kids in masks and kids in schools. Families also have every right to live in a safe and secure community. But we honored your freedoms and saw right away that lockdowns and school closures came with their own significant costs; that mandates weren’t the answer. The President tried to paint a different picture tonight, but his actions over the last twelve months don’t match the rhetoric. But we shouldn’t ignore what happened in the run-up to Putin’s invasion. When I took the oath of office five years ago, I promised Iowans that I would never lose sight of who I was working for. We would pass in the yard as he was coming home and I was leaving to work evenings at the local grocery store.

The governor's speech foreshadowed Republican arguments ahead of the midterm elections.

Whether any of this will pay off for Ms. Reynolds politically remains to be seen. “Keeping schools open is only the start of the pro-parent, pro-family revolution that Republicans are leading in Iowa and states across this country. “Iowa was the first state in the nation to require that schools open their doors,” she said. But to critics, Ms. Reynolds represents the contradictions and hypocrisies of a Republican establishment trying to project a moderate image while bowing to the whims of a former president who has little regard for the party’s mainstream past, or its future without him. Ms. Reynolds hammered the Biden administration’s response to the rise in inflation, accusing the White House of elitism for initially downplaying the issue. In Iowa, Ms. Reynolds has pushed policies championed by a conservative base and motivated by opposition to government efforts to limit the spread of the coronavirus.