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By Zoe Strozewski
Staff Writer
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Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds will deliver the Republican party's response to President Joe Biden's State of the Union address, which he is scheduled to give next week.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy announced that Reynolds would be giving the rebuttal in a press release issued Tuesday. Both McConnell and McCarthy heralded Reynolds as an example of strong Republican leadership in the face of what they described as an "incompetent" government.
Reynolds became Iowa's first female governor in November 2018 when she beat Democrat Fred Hubbell by just three percentage points, the Associated Press reported. She also previously served as the state's lieutenant governor and completed her bachelor's degree at Iowa State University in 2016 during her tenure, according to the release.
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"While Washington Democrats fail working Americans, Republican governors are fighting and winning for families. Governor Kim Reynolds' brave, bold, and successful leadership for Iowans has put her right at the front of that pack," McConnell said in a statement.
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A vocal supporter of former President Donald Trump, Reynolds has mounted resistance to measures like mask and vaccine mandates aimed at containing the spread of COVID-19. At one point, she ended mask mandates while the state was contending with a steep rise in COVID infections and deaths, drawing criticism from the Trump administration's White House Coronavirus Task Force, according to the AP.
She was also the first governor in the U.S. to require schools to open for full-time in-person learning, the release said. McConnell praised her leadership within the pandemic and amid other national issues.
"She fought COVID without forgetting common sense and protected Iowans' health and their rights at the same time. She's defended kids and parents with laws that have kept students in classrooms and woke propaganda out. She has even taken action to address our border crisis while the Biden Administration makes it worse," McConnell said.
In a similar message, McCarthy said that Reynolds "represents what it means to lead with conviction and true faith in our fellow citizens."
Biden will deliver the State of the Union as he continues to face several high-stakes issues like inflation, the pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine crisis. A recent Gallup poll found that 41 percent of U.S. adults approved of the overall job he was doing as president, 37 percent approved of his handling of the economy and 36 percent approved of his handling of the Russia situation.
In her own statement, Reynolds accused the Biden administration of "governing from the far left, ignoring the problems of working-class Americans while pushing an agenda that stifles free speech, free thought and economic freedom."
"The American people have had enough, but there is an alternative and that's what I look forward to sharing on Tuesday evening," Reynolds said.
Update 2/22/22, 2:50 p.m. ET: This story has been updated with additional information and background.
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