Midwest
North Dakota lawmaker pleads guilty to DUI charge, sentenced to unsupervised probation
- North Dakota lawmaker Republican state Rep. Nico Rios has been sentenced to nearly a year of unsupervised probation for drunken driving.
- Rios pleaded guilty on Jan. 8 and received a 10-day suspended jail sentence, mandatory evaluation and a victim impact panel.
- He faced growing calls from his party to resign, including from the House majority leader and state and local Republican Party officials.
A North Dakota lawmaker who insulted police with vulgar, homophobic and anti-migrant comments during an arrest last month for drunken driving was sentenced to serve nearly a year of unsupervised probation and to pay $1,000.
Republican state Rep. Nico Rios, of Williston, received the sentence on Jan. 8, when he pleaded guilty to drunken driving, court records show. His sentence includes a 10-day suspended jail sentence, a mandatory evaluation and a victim impact panel. A misdemeanor charge of refusing a chemical test was dismissed. He must also pay $50 for an open container violation.
Text and email messages were sent to Rios seeking comment Thursday. A phone message was also left with his attorney.
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Rios’ sentence is consistent with others for similar offenses, said criminal defense attorney Mark Friese, a long-time practitioner in DUI cases. He noted that Rios’ driving privileges will be suspended automatically for 91 days.
Body camera video captured North Dakota Republican lawmaker Nico Rios using profanity and homophobic slurs toward Williston police officers and threatening to call the state’s attorney general during a DUI stop on Dec. 5, 2023, in Williston, N.D. Rios said he was leaving a Christmas party before the traffic stop. (Williston Police Dept. via AP)
“It does not appear that he was treated more harshly than other people in similar situations,” Friese said. “My guess is that the judge recognizes … there are multiple entities here that are going to hold Mr. Rios to account.”
Police body-camera footage from the Dec. 15 traffic stop, requested by and provided to the AP, shows Rios cursing an officer, repeatedly questioning his English accent, and using homophobic slurs and anti-migrant language. He also said he would call the North Dakota attorney general about the situation. He told the officers they would “regret picking on me because you don’t know who … I am.”
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He has faced growing calls from his party to resign, including the House majority leader and state and local Republican Party officials.
Last week, Republican House Majority Leader Mike Lefor removed him from the Legislature’s interim Judiciary Committee, saying it wouldn’t be fair for law enforcement officers to testify in front of a committee of which Rios is a member. The House-Senate panel meets between legislative sessions for studies of topics related to law enforcement and the legal system for future or potential legislation.
Rios has said he is “seriously mulling all aspects” of his future, and plans to seek help for alcoholism, but he has made no plans to resign. He also previously said he takes responsibility for his “disgusting actions,” and apologized “to those I have hurt and disappointed,” including law enforcement officers.
Rios has said he was leaving a Christmas party before police pulled him over.
Rios, who works in an oil field position involved in the hydraulic fracturing of wells, was elected unopposed in 2022 to a four-year term in the state House of Representatives. Republicans control the House, 82-12.
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BLOOMINGTON — Indiana football’s roster is on more equal footing with Miami, even though the star rankings have meant little to the final results in this year’s CFP.
The No. 1 Hoosiers (15-0) beat Alabama and Oregon by a combined score of 94-25 despite having no former 5-star players in the starting lineup and just one former top 100 recruit.
The No. 10 Hurricanes (13-2) will have a pair of former 5-star recruits in their starting lineup but are only starting a total of three former top-100 prospects. It’s a sharp drop off in top talent from the likes of Alabama (14), Ohio State (10) and Oregon (eight).
| Category | Indiana | Miami | Oregon | Ohio State | Alabama |
| 5-stars | 0 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 9 |
| 4-stars | 2 | 7 | 11 | 16 | 9 |
| Top 100 recruits | 1 | 3 | 8 | 10 | 14 |
| 2-stars or below | 9 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 2 |
Indiana’s starting lineup still leads the way in overlooked recruits — it will start nine players that ranked 2-stars or below, including starting quarterback Fernando Mendoza — but Miami almost has more (four) than IU’s past three opponents combined (five).
The Hurricanes also has a more of a transfer laden starting lineup (11) than any of Indiana’s postseason opponents.
Here’s a position-by-position breakdown of the recruiting rankings for this year’s participants in the CFP championship game:
Re-live IU’s 2025 season
Indiana football’s quarterbacks vs. Miami
| Position | Indiana (Year) | Rating (National rank) | Miami (Year) | Rating (National rank) |
| Quarterback | Fernando Mendoza (2022) | 2-stars (No. 2,149) | Carson Beck (2020) | 4-stars (No. 254) |
Indiana football’s skill positions vs. Miami
| Position | Indiana (Year) | Rating (National rank) | Miami (Year) | Rating (National rank) |
| Wide receiver | Elijah Sarratt (2022) | 0-stars (N/A) | Malachi Toney (2025) | 4-stars (No. 359) |
| Wide receiver | Omar Cooper Jr. (2022) | 4-stars (No. 299) | Keelan Marion | 2-stars (No. 3,390) |
| Wide receiver | E.J. Williams Jr. (2020) | 4-stars (No. 69) | CJ Daniels (2020) | 3-stars (No. 2,450) |
| Running back | Roman Hemby (2021) | 3-stars (No. 1,767) | Mark Fletcher Jr. (2023) | 4-stars (No. 149) |
| Tight end | Riley Nowakowski (2020) | 0-stars (N/A) | Alex Bauman (2022) | 3-stars (No. 1,770) |
Indiana football’s offensive line vs Miami
| Position | Indiana (Year) | Rating (National rank) | Miami (Year) | Rating (National rank) |
| Left tackle | Carter Smith (2022) | 3-stars (No. 730) | Markel Bell (2022) | N/A |
| Left guard | Drew Evans (2022) | 0-stars (N/A) | Matthew McCoy (2022) | 3-stars (No. 735) |
| Center | Pat Coogan (2021) | 3-stars (No. 613) | James Brockermeyer (2021) | 4-stars (No. 194) |
| Right guard | Bray Lynch (2022) | 3-stars (No. 1,033) | Anez Cooper (2022) | 3-stars (No. 1,149) |
| Right tackle | Kahlil Benson (2020) | 3-stars (No. 714) | Francis Mauigoa (2023) | 5-stars (No. 9) |
Indiana football’s defensive line vs. Miami
| Position | Indiana (Year) | Rating (National rank) | Miami (Year) | Rating (National rank) |
| Defensive tackle | Mario Landino (2024) | 3-stars (No. 2,398) | Ahmad Moten Sr. (2022) | 3-stars (No. 558) |
| Defensive tackle | Tyrique Tucker (2022) | 0-stars (N/A) | Justin Scott (2024) | 5-stars (No. 10) |
| Defensive end | Mikail Kamara (2020) | 0-stars (N/A) | Rueben Bain (2023) | 4-stars (No. 62) |
| Defensive end | Stephen Daley (2022) | 3-stars (No. 1,987) | Akheem Mesidor (2020) | 3-stars (No. 636) |
Indiana football’s linebackers vs. Miami
| Position | Indiana (Year) | Rating (National rank) | Miami (Year) | Rating (National rank) |
| Linebacker | Aiden Fisher (2022) | 0-stars (N/A) | Wesley Bissainthe (2022) | 4-stars (188) |
| Linebacker | Rolijah Hardy (2023) | 0-stars (N/A) | Mohamed Toure (2019) | 3-stars (No. 1,024) |
Indiana football’s secondary vs. Miami
| Position | Indiana (Year) | Rating (National rank) | Miami (Year) | Rating (National rank) |
| Cornerback | D’Angelo Ponds (2023) | 3-stars (No. 1,966) | OJ Frederique Jr. (2024) | 3-stars (No. 784) |
| Cornerback | Jamari Sharpe (2022) | 3-stars (No. 826) | Ethan O’Conner (2023) | 3-stars (No. 673) |
| Safety | Louis Moore (2020) | 0-stars (N/A) | Zechariah Poyser (2023) | N/A |
| Safety | Amare Ferrell (2022) | 3-stars (No. 578) | Jakobe Thomas (2021) | 3-stars (No. 2,048) |
| Rover | Devan Boykin (2020) | 3-stars (No. 833) | Keionte Scott (2020) | N/A |
Michael Niziolek is the Indiana beat reporter for The Bloomington Herald-Times. You can follow him on X @michaelniziolek and read all his coverage by clicking here.
In five of six legislative special elections last year, Democrats overperformed by more than 20 percentage points compared with the 2024 presidential election.
Here are the top 2026 midterm races to follow in Iowa
Des Moines Register Chief Politics Reporter Brianne Pfannenstiel breaks down Iowa’s top races ahead of the 2026 midterms.
Iowa Democrats ended 2025 on a high note, winning a Dec. 30 special election in Des Moines’ western suburbs by a wider margin than during the presidential election.
That capped off a year in which Democrats won four of the six legislative special elections and ended Republicans’ supermajority in the Iowa Senate.
In five of those six special elections, Democrats overperformed by more than 20 percentage points compared with 2024.
They’ll look to build off the momentum going into the pivotal 2026 midterms that will include open races for governor and U.S. senator as well as regular Iowa congressional and Legislature elections.
Whether 2025’s Democratic Party victories are bellwethers or blips will play out this year.
Democrats saw Iowa special elections consistently tilt left
Though Republicans won in two special elections in 2025s, their margins of victory were significantly smaller than 2024.
Republican Wendy Larson won December’s special election for the vacant seat in House District 7 by 40 points. That’s a wide margin, but wide margins are expected for Republicans in that part of the state: The party holds strong advantages in voter registration totals in Calhoun, Pocahontas, Sac and Webster counties, where the district is located.
And even that 40-point margin represented a shift toward the Democrats.
In the 2024 presidential election, Republican Donald Trump defeated Democrat Kamala Harris by 50 points in House District 7. Democrats didn’t even field a candidate for the district’s legislative seat that year.
The 10-point shift toward Democrats from the 2024 presidential election to the 2025 special election in House District 7 was the smallest of any legislative district that held a special election last year.
Each of the five other districts shifted toward Democrats by more than twice as much.
Moreover, those special elections were spread across the state.
Democrats consistently gathered a greater share of votes from Senate District 1 in the northwest part of the state to House District 100 in the state’s southeast corner, ranging from 10 to 26 percentage points.
The two seats Democrats flipped in special elections — Senate Districts 1 and 35 — each shifted to the left by more than 20 points compared with the 2024 presidential election.
In Senate District 1, Trump outpaced Harris by 11 percentage points in 2024, while Democrat Caitlin Drey won the seat there by more than 10 points in August.
In Senate District 35, Trump’s victory margin in Senate District 35 was more than 21 points. In January 2025, Democrat Mike Zimmer won the district’s Senate seat by 3½ points.
In 2022, Republicans won both those seats by even wider margins than Trump in 2024.
Should Democrats expect momentum to carry over to 2026?
Pushing voters to the left in six isolated special elections is one thing. Parlaying those successes into November’s midterm elections is quite another.
Turnout was key in 2025’s special elections, and it will be again in 2026.
The numbers of votes cast in 2025’s special elections equaled roughly one-quarter to one-third the votes cast in the 2024 presidential election in those districts.
Turnout should be higher in November’s midterms.
Since 2000, the percentage of Iowa’s registered voters who have participated in the midterm elections typically has hovered around 55%. (About 75% of registered Iowans usually vote in presidential elections.)
But what determines an election is less about the number of people who show up and more about who those people are.
An increased share of those who went to the polls in the special elections were Democratic voters — or, perhaps more accurately, a greater number of Republican voters stayed home.
Republicans will be working to get those voters back to the polls this November.
Republicans maintain advantage in Iowa voter registration data
The leftward shift in last year’s special elections has yet to materialize in Iowa’s voter registration numbers.
Over roughly the past 15 years, voter registrations in Iowa have swung heavily toward Republicans.
Democrats, conversely, have lost 200,000 voters in that time, and Republicans have opened up an overall advantage of more than 10 percentage points.
Despite their victories at the ballot box in 2025, Democrats have not chipped into Republicans’ significant lead in voter registrations.
Last year was the first since at least 2000 when the share of active voters who were Republicans was at least 10 percentage points higher than the share who were Democrats throughout the entire year.
Republicans began 2026 with nearly 200,000 more active registered voters than Democrats, among their largest leads this century.
Those two parties do not comprise the entirety of Iowa’s electorate — a large share of Iowa’s active voters are not registered to a party, and a smaller amount are registered to other parties, including Libertarians.
And just because a voter is registered as a Democrat or Republican doesn’t mean they’ll vote for their party’s candidates.
But the large voter deficit indicates Democrats are starting from a less favorable position.
Their special election victories in 2025 proved they can win elections, but they’ll need to make up some ground to replicate that success in 2026.
Tim Webber is a data visualization specialist for the Register. Reach him at twebber@registermedia.com and on Twitter at @HelloTimWebber.
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