J.D. Scholten is a two time congressional candidate in Iowa’s 4th district who ran a creative, grassroots campaign that drew national attention for how Democrats can compete in rural areas. In 2018, his campaign lost by just 3% —fewer than 11K votes—in a district with 70,000 more registered Republicans than Democrats, and where Trump won by 27% in 2016.
In 2020, Scholten took his campaign RV to all 374 towns in the district and was one of the few non-incumbent candidates to outperform the top of the ticket. J.D. ran on Antitrust issues and their impact on rural communities. In a feature in Mother Jones, they referred to him as “the only candidate in America talking about the Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921.”
The Sioux City native attended college and played baseball at Morningside College and the University of Nebraska. After college, he played baseball in 7 different countries. He then went on to work as a civil litigation paralegal before he launched his congressional campaigns.