Today we continue with our candidate coverage of the contested Republican Party primary race for the Iowa House District 47 seat.

Jefferson native Phil Thompson is a graduate of Jefferson-Scranton High School. He joined the US Army his senior year of high school, became an Airborne Ranger and was deployed to Iraq. During his final year of active military duty, he attended West Point where he studied system engineering. Following his active military experience, he joined the Iowa Army National Guard and got involved in public policy with advocacy groups. He currently works in construction and recently became Post Commander of the local American Legion organization.

For the last two years, Thompson has worked as a legislative aide in the Iowa House, but he’s running for his first-ever public office. He says his interest in running for the Iowa House became clear after his mother passed away.

“She had catastrophic heart valve failure and it took 45-minutes for an ambulance to arrive. But that episode was ultimately what woke me up to the inequalities of living in rural Iowa. Ultimately what I’m running for is to take a really strong voice for rural communities like ours and make sure that we are seeing good returns, because we are sending plenty of dollars up to Des Moines.”

Three major topics he wants to address, if elected, include: rural advocacy and making sure rural communities are on equal economy fields as urban areas, continuing to support “Right to Life” policies and 2nd Amendment rights for Americans.

To hear more from Thompson, as well as the other two Republican candidates including Victoria Sinclair and Don Batt, click the link below.

raccoonvalleyradio.com/2018/05/greene-county-special-edition-primary-election-meet-the-candidates