Democratic Candidate Sarah Garriott Complains Iowa Leaders Are Too White, Too Christian, Too Male

Iowa Democratic state Sen. Sarah Trone Garriott is rebuking the state’s elected officials for being too white, too Christian, and too male.

Garriott, an ordained minister in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America now running for Congress in Iowa’s 3rd District, made the comments in a YouTube interview with Sebastian Onofre. Asked what drove her to seek federal office, she framed her candidacy as part of an effort to diversify Iowa’s leadership class. (RELATED: Benjamin Schauer Issues Weighty Response Against ‘Intense Wave’ Of Online Backlash)

“I just wanted different kinds of people to be in leadership,” Garriott said, explaining she was inspired by female friends her age who ran first. “I realized I was frustrated about some things about our state government. I thought, that’s not fair for someone else to fix it; maybe I should step up and make the change I wanted to see.”

She added that Iowa’s leadership is “not a very diverse group” and remains “mostly white, mostly Christian, mostly older men,” presenting “tremendous opportunities to get different types of people who represent our community into leadership positions.”

Garriott has taken strong public stances on diversity, equity and inclusion.

When the Iowa Senate voted to ban DEI offices, staff, and programs in state government and public colleges, Garriott proclaimed the move would “hurt our state” and “actually criminalizes those efforts to build our workforce,” according to Radio Iowa.

In a separate speech delivered to the Iowa Conference of the United Methodist Church, she criticized “white patriarchy” as rooted in “masculine power, violence and dominance,” linking it to a rise in Christian nationalism. She traced the phenomenon to prominent evangelist Billy Graham and encouraged congregants to counteract it by building relationships with neighbors and ensuring they “have a voice in their government.”

In the same speech, Garriott described the LGBT and transgender movement as “very threatening to the idea of the white, male, powerful figure because it muddies the waters and makes things ambiguous and confusing.”

IA-03 Democrat Candidate Sarah Trone Garriott – a Christian minister – complains that Iowan Representatives are “mostly Christian.” pic.twitter.com/c1RvSZpkBv

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) February 17, 2026

Republican National Committee spokesman Zach Kraft told the Daily Caller that Garriott has built her career as a “woke warrior.”

“From bashing white men to leading the fight to waste tax dollars on DEI in the Iowa Senate, Sarah Trone Garriott has built a career on being a woke warrior. Just don’t ask her, a white, Christian minister, to do as she says and step aside for a more ‘diverse’ candidate,” Kraft said. “Iowans want nothing to do with this radical leftwing nutjob and will soundly reject her and her insane ideas.”

Garriott did not respond to the Caller’s request for comment.