Travis Terrell motivated by struggles of working class in bid for IA-01 race

Democrat Travis Terrell has had a chip on his shoulder ever since he was a senior in high school. But rather than sit around and let it fester, the candidate for Iowa’s 1st Congressional District is using it as a motivational tool to propel his campaign forward and fight for working class people like himself.

At 17 years old Terrell wanted to serve his country. He talked to the Army recruiter during his senior year. Some time after he fell from a building and shattered his foot. When his mother asked if he wanted the surgery, he said no knowing his mother, working 60 hours a week, could not pay the insurance.

To this day, he still walks with a limp. Terrell would go on to fail the Army physical, and all because “this country failed the working class.” It wasn’t until years later when talking to his mother, who feared what would happen if the current administration took away her social security, that he decided to run for Congress.

“I have a firm belief that working class change requires working class representation,” Terrell said at a recent stop in Newton. “I think that we’ve seen what happens when you put people in power that aren’t part of the working class. They know nothing about our lives. They don’t care about our lives.”

Already, Terrell is getting attacked by Republicans in his bid against incumbent U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks.

National Republican Congressional Committee described him as a “Bernie bro” in a recent post on its website, questioning whether the Vermont senator parachuted an organizer into Iowa to boost Terrell’s campaign for Congress. Terrell said NRCC is lying and that Bernie Sanders has not helped his campaign.

The communications director of NRCC, Emily Tuttle, called out Terrell for a post supportive of Democrat Zohran Mamdani, who is running for mayor of New York City. She said he is “all in” on a socialist agenda to “defund the police, open our borders and create a nanny state.” Terrell fired back.

“The national Republican Party is so terrified of real change that they start foaming at the mouth over a Facebook post about people finally having a voice,” Terrell said in a June 25 social media post. “Emily: ‘He supports healthcare, housing and human rights! Someone sound the socialist alarm!’”

Terrell said the real issues Iowans are facing are much bigger than Democrats versus Republicans. Still, it is odd to him that he gets attacked by the Republican Party while sitting at his job working. He joked it is the most the party has paid attention to a member of the working class since Miller-Meeks has been in office.

To him, the Republican Party betrayed the working class people and have actively started working against them. Terrell said change is needed.

“I’m running for the single moms who are terrified to check their bank balances,” he said. “I’m running for the people like my dad, who is disabled, and when he goes to the grocery store he keeps a note in his head on what he is going to put back if he doesn’t have enough money.”

Terrell suggested change starts from within the Democratic Party, too. He said the party needs to offer real change and offer more than “not being Trump.” Plenty of con men, he added, are waiting in the wings to take over what President Donald Trump started.

Democrats, he said, need to send a message to the working class that they are not forgotten. When Democrats controlled the House, Senate and presidency, Terrell said they were criticized for getting nothing done. He said it is because they compromised “with people who did not give a damn about us.”

Terrell said, “If and when I get elected, I’m not going to be compromising over the lives of the working class, I’m not going to be compromising over human rights.”