LET’S TALK [LOCAL] POLITICS WITH NICK MILLER

LET’S TALK [LOCAL] POLITICS WITH NICK MILLER

BY MATTHEW DEIKE │ PHOTOS COURTESY OF MILLER FOR IOWA

Nick Miller is a junior at Drake University who is running against Chris Hagenow in Iowa’s 19th legislative district. He sat down with the Drake Political Review to discuss issues about his campaign.

Q: Your campaign’s core values are to invest, educate, and sustain. Why did N you choose these values to be the center of your campaign?

A: My mother was a public high school teacher for about 16 years and I grew up in a public school district as well. I am a huge advocate for entrepreneurship, and in particular, entrepreneurship in young professionals. I see this as an opportunity, over the course of the next few decades, to really reshape the American economy. We start to see these bigger businesses begin to move online, and the mom-and-pop shops are starting to be left behind by priorities from the state level. They prioritize those companies over these smaller companies that are helping maintain smaller communities. We have to put our people first.

Q: Do you think people in your community are ready to elect a young college kid compared to someone that’s been serving as a legislator since 2008? A:. I mean, our ages are always an issue no matter what you’re doing, whether you’re too old or too young. I will say that I have nowhere to be in my life besides learning and developing new skills. I have the opportunity to make a difference and to make an impact. I’ve been overwhelmed by the amount of support both monetarily and verbally. People continue to care about me and want to see me do well, and that has been absolutely humbling. It’s been incredible to get that experience and to have people that I have disagreed with on probably every single issue come up to me and say they think it’s incredible that I’m running and that they support me because they feel that I am going to do the best for the community. At the end of the day, those are the types of things that get me to continue waking up and continue doing what I’m doing to make that lasting impact.

Q: In 2016, Chris Hagenow ran against Representative Jennifer Konfrst here at Drake. He spent almost half a million dollars in that campaign. How will you compete with the fundraising?

A: In terms of money and resources, it’s assumed that I’m not going to be able to compete… However, at the end of the day, it’s about those connections that you make with the people, and it’s about being from a small-town Iowa community. I offer that to them as an individual, whether that’s through fieldwork, communication on social media, or letting me just have coffee. I am more than happy and more than willing to meet with anybody.

Q: In 2018, fellow Drake student Joseph Mitchell was elected to the statehouse. How will you leave the groundwork or inspire other students running for offices like yourself and Joseph Mitchell?

A: I’ve only had the opportunity to meet him once, but I have a great deal of respect for Joe Mitchell. If you just looked at the makeup of the current officeholders, the average age is quite up there. Just because we’re younger does not mean that we are any less intelligent…It means that we have a lot of learning to do, but if we insist on only letting a specific age group or a particular gender be the only ones that are influencing policy, we will only ever have whatever that majority group policy is. I want to see the younger generation of Iowans coming to Iowa. I’m born and raised here and I genuinely love Iowa. So if we want to continue to maintain generations to come, we have to have some policies in place to make sure that Iowa is more sustainable and more attractive to younger individuals. I think that that starts by having young office holders, whether Republican, Democrat, Independent, Green Party, whatever the case might be. If you are a younger individual, you have a stake in the future.