Iowa

Analysis: How Iowa became a chaotic curtain-raiser for a fateful political year | CNN Politics

Published

2 years ago

January 15, 2024

Press Room

Analysis: How Iowa became a chaotic curtain-raiser for a fateful political year | CNN Politics

Des Moines, Iowa
CNN
—

The storied history of the Iowa caucuses has never seen anything like this.

A fateful election year likely to put the country’s institutions to an extreme test opens Monday as the first-in-the-nation state shivers under a blast of perishing polar weather.

But it’s not stopping Donald Trump from telling his voters to go out and caucus even if they’re “sick as a dog,” while urging them to punish enemies he branded “cheaters” and “liars.” The former president, who left office in disgrace in January 2021, is seeking a bumper win to set him on the road to a third straight GOP nomination — and a possible return to the White House.

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley wants a jolt of momentum ahead of next week’s New Hampshire primary – her best bet for a shock win over Trump. And Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is battling to keep his campaign alive.

But after months of polls, multimillion-dollar ad blitzes and a collision between an election and Trump’s legal morass, Iowans’ voices are the only ones that matter, although the weather may influence which of them is able to show up.

Blizzards and bone-chilling winds forced candidates to cancel multiple events in the final Iowa stretch. Many churches in the pious state were closed on Sunday, but candidates pleaded with supporters to brave the temperatures on Monday. “You can’t sit home. … Even if you vote and then pass away, it’s worth it,” Trump said, darkly suggesting people who were critically ill should get out to caucus.

Boasting the powerful network he lacked when he finished second here in 2016, Trump – who refused to debate his rivals – spurned one-on-one voter contact in the frigid final days. He substituted outbursts outside New York and Washington courts for intimate meets-and-greets in places like Cedar Rapids, Waterloo and Sioux City that candidates typically use to butter up Iowa’s famously exacting voters.

Trump’s rivals grappled for traction, and not just on the ice-bound roads they traveled to reach small crowds in isolated towns. DeSantis suffered the embarrassment of being awarded a participation trophy by a comedian. And Haley faithfully hammered out the same stump speech at all her stops, ignoring former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s prediction as he folded his own 2024 bid last week that she’d “get smoked” in the nominating race.

One candidate, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, mocked rivals who postponed events because of weather, warning their timidity showed they’d fold before Chinese President Xi Jinping. That was before hubris steered his SUV into an icy ditch.

Even British Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage popped up Sunday in a spiffy suit at a Trump rally in Indianola, prompting the ex-president – peering from beneath a golden cap bearing the slogan “Trump Caucus Captain” – to break off a rambling speech to note, “They know how to dress over there.” That was just one highlight from a monologue that mixed extreme demagoguery and comedy and included the auctioning of an American flag, hero worship of a wrestler, a cascade of falsehoods about the last election, biting new attacks on Haley, and praise of what Trump called “the best bacon I ever had” for breakfast on Sunday.

Then he told a protester to “go home to Mommy.”

Mercifully, an increasingly bottom-of-the-barrel caucus campaign will finally yield to voters Monday night. Iowans who beat snow drifts on the predicted coldest caucus night ever will renew an American ritual.

Yet this civic duty is especially poignant in a year when the candidate whom Iowa Republicans appear poised to select may test democracy as never before after telling his mob to “fight like hell” before it ransacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Trump, who is sounding increasingly authoritarian, lionized one of the darkest days in US history as he closed out his Iowa campaign, hailing jailed rioters as “hostages” who acted “peacefully and patriotically” after a “rigged” election. “We got to send a message we can’t be beaten because if we are beaten, we’re not going to have a country left anymore,” Trump said in Clinton, Iowa, last weekend.

The final pre-caucus Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom poll showed Trump with the backing of 48% of likely Republican caucusgoers. Haley polled at 20%, ahead of DeSantis at 16%, although within the margin of error, and Ramaswamy with 8%.

A Trump victory would reverberate around the world. It would enshrine an astonishing political comeback for an ex-president who usurped a tradition of peaceful transfers of power after refusing to accept his 2020 electoral defeat. It would be Trump’s greatest act of political alchemy yet, after turning his staggering legal woes into a persecution narrative that reinvigorated an initially lackluster campaign.

The final days before Iowa teased out key themes of the Republican primary and the stakes of the general election in November.

The immediate story was of the extraordinary hold Trump still exerts over his party and the frustrated attempts of top rivals, cowed by his power and mystical connection to the GOP base, to settle on a rationale to run against him.

The broader tale — which played out as Trump showed up in court last week — was of his expansive vision of an unrestrained presidency and contempt for the laws and rules that apply to every American. It was a preview of a potential second term likely to be even more extreme than the first. Yet for many Republicans, that extremism remains the key to the appeal of the four-times-indicted former president. Some 88% of the ex-president’s supporters in the Des Moines Register poll said they were enthusiastic to go out and vote for him on Monday night — a far higher measure of intensity than that enjoyed by his closest rivals.

Trump’s week ahead of the caucuses began not in Iowa, but Washington, where he watched his lawyer make a stunning argument: that a president could order SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political rival and only face prosecution if he was first impeached by the House and then convicted by the Senate. Legal experts expect the appeal asserting absolute presidential immunity in his federal election interference case will ultimately fail. But Trump isn’t exactly hiding his intentions.

After a brief jaunt back to Iowa on Wednesday for a chummy Fox town hall while DeSantis and Haley slugged it out in a fiery CNN debate, Trump was back in court Thursday in New York in the civil fraud case that could seriously dent his fortune. The former president sat, his eyes narrowed and his fury palpable. When he gave a speech, he ignored admonitions not to launch a campaign rally, prompting Judge Arthur Engoron to beseech the-ex president’s attorney, “Please, control your client.”

The judge was asking for an impossibility. No one has ever been able to control Trump, in business or politics, as the ex-president showed in a subsequent rant against prosecutors from his sparkling 70-floor skyscraper near the New York Stock Exchange. Chalk up another first for this most unusual edition of the caucuses. No one has pitched Iowans from Wall Street before. “They have no case,” Trump insisted, while also trying to sell reporters on one of the “nicest” buildings in Manhattan. “I don’t have to pay any rent, because we have it,” he said.

Trump’s decision to route his White House bid through the courtrooms shows his campaign is his legal defense and vice versa. But while he obsesses over his legal dramas and personal feuds, he’s ignoring issues voters care about — and raise in town halls hosted by his rivals — like saving Social Security, high grocery prices, better access to health care and improving the economy.

“The problem I have with Trump is I like his ideas,” said Sharon Mancero, a businesswoman who is now supporting Haley. “(But) the way he executes them — and him putting himself first all the time and his boisterous personality — falls on deaf ears with me,” Mancero said. “He’s become nails on chalkboard.” Still, Mancero said she’d vote for Trump against President Joe Biden.

The Trump circus is also obscuring the fact that he’s assembled a far more professional political machine than before — a fact that that should worry Democrats if he’s the nominee.

“In 2016, they didn’t really have an organization,” said Jimmy Centers, an Iowa Republican consultant who is not affiliated with a presidential campaign. “They were doing it based off of name ID and the sizzle, if you will, that he brought to the race. They are very sophisticated now.”

Centers pointed out that when Trump did visit Iowa, he often headed not to the most populated areas, but to rural towns where he can run up the vote on caucus night — like Clinton in the far east of the state.

Unlike DeSantis, Haley isn’t wagering her campaign on Iowa. She’s just looking for a boost to send her into New Hampshire. “The fellas are scared. I’m telling you,” she told supporters in Cedar Falls on Saturday. “You can see our numbers going up in the polls. Americans just want to see if it’s possible. … This starts with Iowa. Y’all know how to do this. You take this responsibly,” she said.

Haley is trying to thread the needle that no GOP candidate has yet managed — exploiting Trump’s liabilities without angering the voters who still like him.

“I think President Trump was the right president at the right time,” Haley, who served the former president as UN ambassador, told around 250 people at a swanky new retail park in Ankeny. “I agree with a lot of his policies. But rightly or wrongly, chaos follows. Y’all know it, chaos follows him.”

The former South Carolina governor’s self-described penchant for telling “hard truths” did not extend to a more explicit critique of the former president. But while Haley’s critics want her to go harder on the former president, her remarks landed well in the room, where former Trump voters don’t necessarily want to be rebuked. Former Texas GOP Rep. Will Hurd — who rooted his aborted presidential campaign in criticism of Trump — denied she’s giving the ex-president a pass. “People are saying she’s not critical. That’s just an argument people are making because they are trying to stop the momentum that we’ve seen,” he said.

Haley is polished, persuasive; she leans on her record as governor and stresses she’s a mom, a military wife and purveyor of common sense. She rarely strays from her stump speech — although that’s not necessarily a bad thing: George W. Bush rode rigid message discipline to the White House in 2000. But Haley was seeking to play error-free ball after failing to name slavery as the cause of the Civil War and noting in New Hampshire that its primary may “correct” the verdict of Iowa. DeSantis has tried to exploit both errors. In Ankeny, Haley sailed past a question from her crowd about what she’d do about Obamacare as she stuck to her script. And the press was kept behind gaffer tape on which a Sharpie-wielding campaign aide worker wrote, “No media beyond this line.”

Haley’s prospects got a real jolt on the day of the CNN debate, when Christie’s departure offered her an opening to woo his band of Granite State supporters. “We’re going to go out and earn those votes,” said Mark Harris, who works for pro-Haley super PAC Stand for America.

Haley’s supporters often bring up her non-polarizing appeal. Lovisa Tedestedt, a Swede who is hoping her US citizenship application is processed in time for her to vote for Haley in a general election, has been sympathetic to Democrats in the past but now supports the South Carolina Republican. “First of all, we need a little younger blood in the White House. But she is definitely a unifier. Not a divider. She is sensible,” Tedestedt said.

The rap on DeSantis is that he’s an awkward campaigner who fails to connect, and that his once-ambitious campaign is about to crash.

Yet he’s a far better candidate after touring Iowa’s 99 counties. DeSantis is doing it the old-fashioned way, holding events in small towns and appealing to voters who see Haley as too liberal and who are tired of Trump’s cacophony. “The governor showed up. He’s not dodging debates, he’s working hard, trying to earn people’s votes,” said Texas Rep. Chip Roy, who drove from St. Louis in a blizzard to join his friend in Iowa. DeSantis is now pinning his hope on a turnout effort that his team has spent months building.

He is presenting himself as a more effective implementer of Trumpism than the former president and touts his deeply conservative record of governance in Florida and his refusal to accept government Covid-19 mandates. And he’s winning some Iowans over. “I was a Trump supporter the first time around. I think he did a good job, but his personality tends to limit him, and I think Ron DeSantis has the ability to connect with people across the aisle a little more,” said Stanley Penning, from Hubbard, Iowa.

Yet Iowa has has raised existential questions for the DeSantis campaign. Was he wrong to pitch for the same kind of voters as Trump, given the ex-president’s popularity? And was his bid to oust his former mentor doomed from the start since GOP voters care more for Trump’s presentation than his ideology and implementation?

Joel Rudman, a physician from the Florida Panhandle, was inspired to successfully run for the state legislature in 2022 by the governor’s refusal to lock down the state during the pandemic. He flew from his temperate home state to frigid Iowa to offer testimony for DeSantis, whom he described as a “great man” who had always had his back. “I’ve got to be honest, I wish I could strip down here because I have a Trump shirt on,” Rudman said. “I used to be a Trump supporter. I still love President Trump. I voted for him twice. It’s just in this election, I think we have a better choice, I think people need to look at results.”

DeSantis must win over thousands more Trump supporters. And time is short, because the Iowa campaign is ending just as it began — with the former president on top.

The curtain-raiser voting will provide the first real data of the 2024 election. But there’s little evidence that Republicans want someone else. Polls show that many falsely believe Trump won in 2020 and are convinced his multiple prosecutions show weaponization of justice by the Biden administration.

While Haley and DeSantis are running spirited campaigns, and Ramaswamy became a conservative star despite appearing to infuriate his rivals, Trump still speaks for millions of Republican voters. He has pulled off the considerable political feat of preserving his brand as an outsider despite serving a presidential term. And with millions of Americans struggling to finance car purchases or keep up with their bills, there’s even a little Trump nostalgia among voters who don’t perceive the economic improvements Biden touts.

“(Trump’s) appeal is because of his message of shaking things up, doing things in a very unconventional way,” Centers said. “People are wondering or thinking that’s what we need. We need someone who talks like us, who thinks us, and wants to shake things up. Because (people think) the way it’s going, it’s not working for me.”

CNN’s Kit Maher and Veronica Stracqualursi contributed to this report.

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Iowa

‘¿Habla español?’ Iowa schools look overseas to find Spanish teachers

Published

2 hours ago

March 11, 2026

Press Room

‘¿Habla español?’ Iowa schools look overseas to find Spanish teachers

The Exchange Visiting Teachers from Spain helps schools find qualified Spanish teachers.
World language teaching positions are hard to fill in rural areas.

The sounds of Dallas Center-Grimes High School Spanish students singing “¿Por Que Te Vas?” by Jeanette with varying levels of gusto and prodding by teacher Antton Zuazu Hernández may seem like an unusual way to learn.

But the sing-along is how Zuazu Hernández, a native of Spain, helps engage his students and share his culture as part of a teacher-exchange program.

“I feel I’m a messenger in a way, and this is part of the program,” he said. “We’re expected to both bring our culture here and bring your culture back to Spain.”

Zuazu Hernández — who taught English in Spain — is among 26 bilingual teachers in Iowa as part of an exchange program between the Iowa Department of Education and Spain’s Ministry of Education and Culture.

“(The program) was created to address the shortage of qualified Spanish teachers in the state and helps expose students to different world cultures,” said Heather Doe, the department’s spokesperson. “… The Exchange Visiting Teachers from Spain program has been very successful in helping schools, especially in rural communities, hire highly qualified Spanish teachers.”

Iowa has nearly 1,200 world language teachers in kindergarten through college, according to the Iowa World Language Association website.

Some foreign language teachers in Iowa moved to the U.S. and later obtained teaching credentials. Others were recruited to work in Iowa schools.

Iowa schools, including Waukee Community School District, even offer financial incentives as a recruitment tool for hard to fill positions.

“Many of them, like me, will arrive with teaching experience from our home countries, but in the process of validating the credentials in the U.S. we find obstacles,” said Elizabeth Bulthuis, a Waukee High School world languages teacher who immigrated from Ecuador in 2003, “and the validating of credentials also can be lengthy and costly, because of all the educational systems and how they are structured differently.”

Exchange program is beneficial to schools, superintendent

The Spain exchange program — which brings hundreds of teachers to schools across the U.S. — comes with several requirements.

The Spanish teachers must be certified in the language with at least two years of experience, Doe said. Additionally, candidates go through a vetting process at the federal, state and local levels. Teachers also attend a three-day state orientation.

Schools and districts participating in the program pay an $895 fee to offset licensing and orientation costs, Doe said.

The program is a blessing for rural areas struggling to fill positions teaching foreign language, special education, math and science.

“It’s very difficult to even get an applicant,” said Deron Stender, the superintendent at the rural Creston Community School District, “… When I say it’s difficult to even find (the candidates) they don’t exist. And if they do, they’re probably going to be in a larger metro, urban, suburban areas where there’s just more opportunities.”

St. Anthony’s conducts bilingual class for its students

St. Anthony’s Catholic school brings Spanish speaking teachers to the U.S. to teach students the language.

Zuazu Hernández taught Spanish and drove a bus at Creston during the 2024-25 school year. But falling enrollment and budget cuts resulted in his position being eliminated.

A program drawback is teachers only have three-year visas, he said.

“When you have a very good individual that comes to your district from a foreign country after the third year, you still have that need again,” Stender said. “So, we just open it back up to the same program, but you’re doing another refresh of the process, and while that’s a challenge, it’s still better than not having a teacher in the classroom.”

Not every world language teacher comes from Spain

Another issue schools have faced is filling teaching positions for immersion programs.

In the early 2000s, St. Anthony’s started a Spanish-immersion program after several families with children of Honduras and Guatemala descent wanted their kids to have a Catholic school education and maintain their connection to the Spanish language.

“A lot of teachers go to school to teach Spanish, but they go to school to teach it as a standalone Spanish class,” principal Jennifer Raes said. “… We were really searching for teachers that could come here and teach in any subject, just a regular teacher, but also has the skills of teaching in Spanish and English.”

Marisol Guerra, a Honduras native, came to the U.S. in 2010 to help start St. Anthony’s program. Guerra manage to come to the U.S. as part of that year’s Spain exchange program cohort.

More than a decade later, the school offers classes in English and an immersive track where 85% of the students’ day is spent learning in Spanish. While families were hesitant in the beginning to take part in the immersion program, there is now a waitlist of almost a dozen families.

“There was uncertainty, (but) they wanted their children to learn a second language,” Guerra said, “and they wanted without knowing, I think, they also were exposing them to other cultures and opening their minds to other things.”

The over the years, St. Anthony’s has employed teachers who moved to America from Spain, Mexico and other Latin American countries.

The over representation of teachers from Spain likely is due to other countries not offering similar exchange programs, said Bulthuis, a member of the Iowa World Language Association.

It took several years for the veteran teacher — who came to Iowa in 2005 — to become credentialed to teach in the U.S. because she was not part of an exchange program.

“I think that world language teachers can be difficult to recruit because the pool of candidates is relatively small, so teachers need a strong language proficiency, cultural knowledge and all the teaching certifications,” said Bulthuis, who left Ecuador in 2003 because of the country’s financial crisis, “(but) many people who speak another language also have opportunity in other careers.”

Bulthuis does not recommend loosening the criteria to teach in Iowa but suggests improving or streamlining the process for an international teacher to obtain a state teaching license.

“… Not every Spanish speaking country is going to have (an exchange) program like that in place to help their community,” Bulthuis said,

Cultural exchange

Educators say employing international teachers goes beyond language skills.

“International educators can bring tremendous cultural and linguistic expertise to the classroom, which is an incredible skill and very valuable for students,” Bulthuis said.

That cultural exchange can carry over into a school’s lesson plans.

Zuazu Hernández often lets his American students’ interests drive what he teaches them about Spanish culture. These questions have ranged from wanting more insight into bullfighting, the Spanish school system, stereotypes and politics.

“Sometimes, they are more interested in me as a person, or the things I can tell them about Spain than the actual Spanish language,” he said, “but they have that curiosity that I think all teachers, we have to take advantage of.”

While reading “¡Viva el toro!” by Lisa Ray Turner and Blaine Ray, a novel about bullfighting, Zuazu Hernández talked to students about his family’s love of the cultural spectacle and how it is losing popularity in Spain because of how the bulls are treated.

Zuazu Hernández is open about his perspective on the practice to his students.

“To me, bullfighting is not worth sustaining just because it’s a tradition — traditions are not always good or acceptable — but rather because it’s an art, and it expands the depth of human understanding of the most intense truths in life, with death as the scariest of all,” he told the Des Moines Register in an email.

His students appreciate his candidness and the chance to learn from teachers with different lived experiences.

“I like having different teachers because they have different experiences, and I think it adds to the overall class,” said Grace Heston, an 11th grader Dallas Center-Grimes High School. “When you’re learning about Spanish, you’re not just learning about a language, you’re learning about the culture associated with it.”

Samantha Hernandez covers education for the Register. Reach her at (515) 851-0982 or svhernandez@gannett.com.

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Iowa

NCAA Wrestling Championships at-large bids announced

Published

14 hours ago

March 10, 2026

Press Room

NCAA Wrestling Championships at-large bids announced

The 330 wrestlers competing in Cleveland at the NCAA Championships are now set.

After the conference tournaments established the lion’s share of wrestlers, the NCAA announced the at-large bids on Tuesday, March 10, completing the rest of the field.

Brackets and seeds will be announced on March 10, but here’s a look at the contingents each state of Iowa program will be sending after the at-large bids were announced.

Iowa wrestling NCAA qualifiers

For the third year in a row, Iowa wrestling will be sending nine to the NCAA Championships. Victor Voinovich did not earn an at-large bid at 157 pounds after finishing ninth at the Big Ten Championships, one place outside of NCAA automatic qualification. He concludes his season with a 12-6 record.

Voinovich narrowly earned the starting job over Jordan Williams at 157, with Iowa coach Tom Brands saying it was very close, but Voinovich had shown a little more “fight” this year. Now that Voinovich hasn’t qualified for NCAAs, it’s a decision that will go further under the microscope.

What’s done is done, however, for Iowa. They’ll take Dean Peterson (125), Drake Ayala (133), Nasir Bailey (141), Ryder Block (149), Michael Caliendo (165), Patrick Kennedy (174), Angelo Ferrari (184), Gabe Arnold (197) and Ben Kueter (285) to Cleveland in hopes of salvaging what has been a tough season.

Iowa State wrestling NCAA qualifiers

For the first time since 2010, Iowa State will send all 10 wrestlers to the NCAA Championships. Vinny Zerban earned an at-large bid at 157 pounds despite falling short of the automatic qualifying threshold at the Big 12 Championships. Zerban suffered a concussion and medically forfeited out of the tournament after his first match in Tulsa. His health status will be worth monitoring NCAAs inch closer, from March 19-22.

The Cyclones look poised for one of their best postseasons in recent memory with their 10 qualifiers ―Stevo Poulin (125), Garrett Grice (133), Anthony Echemendia (141), Jacob Frost (149), Zerban, Connor Euton (165), MJ Gaitan (174), Isaac Dean (184), Rocky Elam (197) and Yonger Bastida (285). The loss of Evan Frost hurts the Cyclones, considering his pedigree and season as a whole, but Grice’s has earned several ranked wins since entering the lineup in February and could still add some much-needed team points as the team chases a team trophy.

Behind title contenders Elam and Bastida, proven podium threats in Poulin, Echemnedia, Jacob Frost and Zerban (if healthy), Iowa State will be in the mix for a top-four finish in Cleveland.

UNI wrestling NCAA qualifiers

Northern Iowa will send five to the NCAA Championships. Automatic qualifiers Julian Farber (133), Caleb Rathjen (149) and Ryder Downey (165) will be joined by Jared Simma (174) and Nick Fox (184), who each earned at-large bids. The number of qualifiers could extend to six, with Trever Anderson (125) being the alternate at 125 pounds for NCAAs. However, he had to medically forfeit out of the Big 12 Championships, so his health status would be in question if he got called up.

With that, Max Brady (141), Cael Rahnavardi (157), John Gunderson (197) and Adam Ahrendsen (285) will have their seasons come to an end. Brady, a true freshman, will still have three NCAA chances in his career after showing promising moments in relief of Cory Land’s season-ending injury. Gunderson, a U23 World team member, will return for next season as well. Rahnavardi and Ahrendsen were both in their final seasons of eligibility.

Following injuries to Land and Wyatt Voelker, it’s been a hard year for the Panthers. This is half the number of NCAA qualifiers that UNI had last season when they qualified 10 for the first time since 1986. The last time UNI had five or fewer qualifiers was 2016.

However, all five of their wrestlers have each shown moments of brilliance, either this season or in prior NCAA Championships. They may be a smaller crew than normal, but Downey, Rathjen, Farber, Simma and Fox are all ones to watch in Cleveland.

Eli McKown covers high school sports and wrestling for the Des Moines Register. Contact him at Emckown@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @EMcKown23.

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Iowa

DCI agent say he was fired for questioning Iowa college gambling probe

Published

1 day ago

March 10, 2026

Press Room

DCI agent say he was fired for questioning Iowa college gambling probe

A former Iowa investigator is suing the state, claiming he was fired for criticizing a high-profile college sports gambling probe.
Mark Ludwick alleges his termination was retaliation for testifying that investigators conducted illegal searches and were told to mislead students.
The gambling investigation, which led to charges against dozens of student-athletes, has faced legal challenges over its methods.

A longtime investigator for the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation says he was forced out of the agency because he voiced reservations about a high-profile investigation into gambling in college athletics.

Mark Ludwick was hired by Iowa’s top investigative agency in 1997 and was terminated in November 2024, according to a lawsuit filed Feb. 20 in Polk County. According to his complaint, Ludwick was fired after two “frivolous” investigations, one claiming he’d exceeded the speed limit driving to a murder scene, and the other for assistance he provided to a domestic abuse victim.

The real reason, Ludwick alleges, is that officials were embarrassed after Ludwick testified under oath about what he regarded as weaknesses in their sports wagering investigation, which resulted in dozens of Iowa State University and University of Iowa student-athletes facing suspensions, 25 being criminally charged and 19 pleading guilty to underage gambling.

Ludwick testified in early 2024 he believed investigators had conducted illegal searches to identify the online gamblers and that he and other agents had been directed to lie to students about whether they were subjects of the investigation. He also alleged that stress about the case contributed to another agent’s fatal heart attack, although the agent’s relatives disputed the connection.

Now Ludwick is accusing the state of violating Iowa’s whistleblower protection statute. He declined through his attorney to comment. The Iowa Attorney General’s Office also declined to comment, and the Iowa Department of Public Safety, which includes the DCI, did not respond to an inquiry about the case.

Gambling investigation raised constitutional concerns

In the gambling investigation, DCI investigators used software tools provided by GeoComply, a Canadian company that contracts with online sportsbooks like FanDuel and DraftKings, to look for evidence of illegal gambling activity. Using a GeoComply system, the investigators created a so-called “geofence” around college athletic facilities that allowed them to detect student athletes using wagering accounts registered to parents and friends to place bets ― sometimes on their own games.

Although the investigation resulted in numerous arrests and suspensions, it also drew controversy, in particular for agents’ failure to obtain warrants before conducting their location searches. GeoComply, which had encouraged Iowa to use its service, responded by cancelling the state’s access.

A large group of current and former students sued the state, accusing investigators of violating their constitutional rights. In November 2025, a federal judge ruled that the state’s investigation “does not comport with the Fourth Amendment,” which provides protection from illegal searches.

Nonetheless, the court dismissed the lawsuit, finding the officers involved were entitled to immunity. An appeal is pending.

Ludwick’s reservations emerge in depositions

Ludwick was an experienced investigator for the DCI, working on high-profile cases including the 2015 murder of Shirley Carter, whose son was tried and acquitted, and the 2017 deaths of two girls in a fire started by a relative.

While not the lead agent on the 2023 gambling investigation, Ludwick was tapped to assist by interviewing some of the student athletes. He later testified he grew concerned that the state’s geofence searches amounted to illegal, warrantless searches, and declined to participate in the case any further. He alleges that other DCI agents shared his concerns and also maneuvered to avoid being involved in the case.

Ludwick says he reported his concerns to his superiors. In January 2024, he was deposed by defense attorneys for four of the students, and “testified truthfully during his deposition that he believed an illegal search had been conducted.” Defense attorneys cited Ludwick’s remarks within days in filings covered by numerous media outlets, including the Des Moines Register, which “caused embarrassment and increased scrutiny for the Iowa Department of Public Safety, Commissioner Bayens, and other employees,” Ludwick’s suit states.

According to the complaint, officials launched an investigation into Ludwick for speeding on March 5, weeks after the embarrassing testimony was reported. On Aug. 8, officials initiated a second investigation after, Ludwick says, “he attempted to help a victim of domestic abuse flee her abuser.” He denies his actions violated Iowa law or department policy.

William Morris covers courts for the Des Moines Register. He can be contacted at wrmorris2@registermedia.com or 715-573-8166.

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