Around 27 people attended the Washington County Democratic Caucus held in person and through Zoom at the Immanuel Lutheran Church.

County Attorney John Gish speaks to around 16 Washington residents at the Republican caucus held for the city’s four wards at the county courthouse.

Washington County Democrats and Republicans met for their respective caucuses Monday night ahead of the midterm June 7th primary and November 8th general elections.

There were six Republican caucus sites hosted in Washington County, with the City of Washington’s held at the county courthouse. District 5 Supervisor Richard Young and County Attorney John Gish each spoke about their run for reelection. Gish commented while he has not ran opposed in his last five years in the position, he has made a recent effort to be more transparent about what is going on in district court for the county, “It’s appropriate and right for the county attorney to be an elected official, because I have the most amount of discretion in the criminal justice system, in law enforcement. Ultimately, the final say is with me and I think the people deserve to have somebody in that position where they think they are doing justice.”

The newly drawn State House District 92 that encompasses Washington and a southern portion of Johnson county held attention as candidate Jaron Rosien shared his key legislative issues and candidate Heather Hora’s husband Kurt spoke on her behalf. County Democrat Interim Chair Harold Frakes shares that finding their own candidate for the seat was a priority Monday night, “We believe that we have a good chance of capturing this seat because it’s an open seat. And we know that the northern part of the county is more heavily Democrat, and certainly Johnson County where we will be is more heavily Democrat. So we think that’ll work to our advantage this time and all, at least we hope so.”

The purpose of the midterm caucuses is to discuss and adopt proposed resolutions to be added to the county platform, elect delegates and alternates to the county convention, and elect precinct committeepersons to the county central committee. The Iowa Democratic Party’s county conventions will be held on March 26th with district conventions on April 23rd, and the state convention on June 18th. The Republican Party of Iowa will host county conventions on March 12th, district conventions on April 23rd, and the state convention on June 11th.