ELECTION DAY

When: Tuesday, Nov. 3

Voting hours: 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Where: Sharon Center United Methodist Church, Lone Tree American Legion, Hills Community Center, and a number of other polling places throughout Johnson County.

Polling places list: Go to johnsoncountyiowa.gov/auditor/polling-places

IOWA CITY

Johnson County government is about to become so different.

And that fact strikes home quickly for voters going to the polls Nov. 3 for an election that will not only decide if a $94.5 million bond referendum passes for a new county jail and sheriff’s office, but also for all five county supervisor seats and the usual mid-term decisions.

Except you won’t get to vote on all five supervisor seats.

Per new state legislation passed in 2025, Johnson County’s five at-large supervisor seats have been divided into five district seats. And that means voters get to select just one supervisor in their own district instead of five at-large supervisors.

Additionally, all terms, even those with two years still remaining, are done at the end of December.

Longtime Supervisor Rod Sullivan, who won a new four-year term in 2024, was the biggest victim of the new law because he lives in the same Iowa City district as Supervisor V Fixmer-Oraiz and he lost a primary election to Fixmer-Oraiz in June. Both are Democrats.

All five current supervisors belong to the Democrat Party and some believe the new law was rammed through a Republican super majority in Des Moines so that Johnson County, one of five Iowa counties (and by the largest margin) in the last Presidential election to favor Kamala Harris over Donald Trump, may be more likely to have a Republican or two on the Board of Supervisors.

“It’s bullshit,” Supervisor Chair Jon Green, a former Lone Tree mayor, told The News. “I think the law is bullshit.”

In all five Supervisor races, there is a Democrat running against a Republican where in the past some Democrats ran unopposed for county office. Sheriff Brad Kunkel, a Democrat, ran unopposed in the 2024 election, and three other Democrats, Rachel Zimmermann Smith, Scott Finlayson and Kim Painters, are running unopposed in November’s election for Johnson County Attorney, Treasurer and Recorder.

Green sees another Democrat sweep in the Supervisor elections.

“Not only do I think is it offensive to any assemblance of fairness and equal protection,” Green said, “it also, I don’t think, is going to have the intended outcome. I don’t think that any of the Republicans are going to be victorious for supervisor seats.”

Three of the winners in Tuesday’s election will serve just two-year terms, including the District 3 battle in southwestern Johnson County, Tiffin and Coralville between Jennie Wunderlich, a Republican from rural Kalona whose kids are in the Mid-Prairie school system, and Sue Dvorsky, a former Iowa Democrat Party Chair from Coralville. Those same districts will be back up for four-year term elections in 2028. Two districts, 1 and 5, will get four-year terms in this year’s election.

Four of the current five supervisors are running for re-election, including Green. Sullivan is the fifth.

Green is running against Phil Hemingway, a Republican from the eastern side of the county he has run against in previous elections.

Lisa Green-Douglass, who lives in North Liberty, is running against Gregory Erceg, a Republican from Solon. Mandi Remington, a first-term Supervisor who lives in Iowa City, is running against Donna Dane, an Iowa City Republican. Fixmer-Oraiz, an Iowa City resident and the first Trans to hold county office, is running against Wanda Foster, another Iowa City Republican.

Once in office, the winners face what may be conflicting areas of interest: Do they vote along the lines of an overall county official or do they push for things that would benefit the districts in which they live.

“Each of these five districts is roughly the size of a House district in the Iowa General Assembly, and in my thinking would work similarly,” said Dvorsky, the wife of a former State of Iowa Senator, Bob Dvorsky. “The job is to be out in the district, listening to and learning from residents across the district. Then, back at the Board of Supervisors meetings, to bring those perspectives to collaborate with the other supervisors doing the same in their districts. I think if we look at this as an opportunity to broaden our reach, we have the chance to change county government for the better.”

Green-Douglass is concerned about supervisors collaborating on road projects in a county that is known for not permanently closing a bridge or highway in rural areas that are needed by farmers. The new district system includes three districts with rural areas and two non-rural districts in Iowa City.

“The supervisors who will be elected to those districts might maintain a countywide mindset. Or they might not,” Green-Douglass said.

Green-Douglass provides real-life examples: One year, the Highway 965 bridge over the Iowa River was closed immediately due to structural damage and the Board held an emergency meeting to move repair work to the top of the county’s road list. Another bridge on Swan Lake Road faced repairs that kept it closed for almost a year.

Will that still happen?

“Things are going to change. That’s undeniable,” Green said. “I think that you’re going to see more wheeling and dealing. I don’t know if that’s going to lead to better outcomes or not, or if it’s just going to be more straight politicking.”

“Under districting,” Green-Douglass said, “it would certainly be understandable for supervisors to want large, costly projects such as these to rotate districts rather than be prioritized based on need. They would want money spent in their district. With districts, we would still have had to close the Swan Lake Road bridge, but it could have been as long as five years before the repairs took place.”

Already, there is a rift on the board which has led to some heated discussions. While Green, Sullivan and Green-Douglass favor the $94.5 million new jail proposal, Fixmer-Oraiz and Remington solidly oppose it.

Dvorsky and Wunderlich have openly supported a new jail in public comment sessions, and the construction of a new jail is something all Republican candidates agree on.

Early voting numbers show a strong interest in this election, but it’s not clear whether it’s because of the federal mid-term ballots or local offices and issues. In District 3, the district that includes rural Kalona, Frytown, Tiffin and Coralville, the number of Democrat ballots have outnumbered Republican ballots by a 5-to-1 ratio.

While the state drew up districts that are close in resident numbers, District 2 (Lone Tree and other eastern county areas) and District 3 have had larger early turnout numbers than Iowa City.

Johnson County Auditor Julie Persons says early voting is more than 80% higher than it was in the last mid-term elections in 2022.