On a cool spring day in 2019, my husband Zach came home from Des Moines furious. He’s not a man who angers easily – an important character trait when you’re in politics, as well as a marriage. But that day, he was angry, because the thing he’d been working on for months, a common sense bill that would grant basic protections to our neighbors living in mobile homes, had been killed by a member of the Iowa House of Representatives.

As a freshman State Senator, Zach had started hearing from constituents whose mobile home communities had been bought up by an out-of-state company that proceeded to raise their lot rents by 50%, or 60%, or 70%, from one month to the next. These were people on fixed incomes, or living paycheck to paycheck, who were being forced to choose between keeping a roof over their heads and buying groceries or filling their prescriptions. They were trapped, and they were scared, and they needed someone to fight for them.

Zach heard these stories, and then he did what I’ve seen him do so many times: He got to work. He went to his colleagues in the Senate, where even though he was a freshman in the minority, he worked with them until they arrived at a compromise bill that would protect Iowans from these predatory practices. He brought our neighbors to the Capitol so they could speak on their own behalf about how the bill would make a difference for them. It worked: In the Senate that bill passed 48-0, and it went to the House, where its passage seemed like a done deal.

But then a single House member, at the behest of the lobbyist representing those predatory out of state companies, killed Zach’s bill. That House member was Ashley Hinson.

Zach watched with his own eyes as Hinson, who is now running for Iowa’s open US Senate seat, sided with powerful out of state corporations over her own constituents. Later, he learned that all it had cost the lobby was a $1500 donation to her 2016 re-election campaign.

Like I said, Zach doesn’t get mad easily. But in the last decade I’ve learned that nothing makes him angrier than seeing people who have power screw over people who don’t.

It’s an anger we’ve heard about all over the state as Zach has spent the last year running for the US Senate. Iowans are angry at politicians who have written them off and left them behind. They’re angry at Republicans, who have signed off on President Trump’s disastrous tariffs and his war of choice in Iran, which have sent prices skyrocketing – to say nothing of the tragic human cost for the state of Iowa. They’re angry at Democrats, who have stopped fighting for small towns and blue collar workers, and do the bidding of corporate donors instead of answering to working people.

Iowans pay the price for that corruption every day at the gas pump, the supermarket, the pharmacy, and the childcare center. We pay it in poorly-staffed maternity wards and nursing homes, in water we can’t swim in and are scared to drink, in boarded up main streets and consolidating public schools.

Zach knows it doesn’t have to be this way. And as always, he’s ready to get to work. As our next US Senator, Zach will work tirelessly to root out corruption and make life easier for hardworking Iowans. He won’t win every battle, but he’ll never back down from a hard fight. After so many years of being let down by our leaders, Zach is the fierce, independent champion that Iowans deserve.

Like many Iowans, I became aware of Zach because of a viral moment–a powerful speech he gave about his family in the face of a government that was targeting and scapegoating them. Perhaps you know about our “meet-cute,” the blog post I wrote in response to the viral video, which I headlined, “Marry Me, Zach Wahls.”

It’s a great how-we-met story. But the real love story is what happened next: I fell for Zach because I recognized the values we shared. Hard work. A clear sense of right and wrong and a hunger for justice. A dedication to public service, and the belief that everyone’s story is worth not just hearing, but really listening to. The ability to turn anger and fear into something positive and productive that makes people’s lives better. These are Zach’s values. He lives them every day. They’re what drives his campaign. And they’re why he’ll make a formidable US Senate candidate this November and an effective US Senator.

He’s earned my admiration, and my vote, a hundred times over. I hope he’ll earn yours, too.

Chloe Angyal