In 2019, Joe Mitchell became the youngest Iowa state legislator at the age of 21. After serving in the Iowa House of Representatives for four years, he became a founder of Run Gen-Z, a non-profit focused on mobilizing conservative youth in electoral politics. The HPR sat down with Mitchell during his time as a resident fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics to discuss his experience in state government, youth politics, and mental health advocacy.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
HPR: Tell us about yourself. Where did you grow up, and what was it like where you lived?
Joe Mitchell: I grew up in southeast Iowa, and I was born in a small town. Washington was the town where I was born, and I grew up in a little town called Wayland. There were about 1,000 people in my hometown, and I had 30 students in my graduating class. It was quite a small high school in rural Iowa.
Growing up my parents were small business owners, they were entrepreneurs. They had a medical device company where they made orthopedic braces for babies with club feet, I worked at the factory in high school and did a variety of things that shaped my worldview to a certain extent.
I graduated a semester early from high school, in December 2014, and went on to be a page at the Iowa State Capitol in January 2015. I had a high school teacher who knew I wanted to graduate early. I was looking at potential colleges to go to and start the second half of my senior year, and she recommended that I look at this thing called the Page Program, an internship for high school seniors. Ultimately, I applied for that program, got accepted to it, and started shortly after.
As a page, I was responsible for doing a variety of tasks: helping draft bills, doing research projects, and getting coffees and that sort of thing for staff and for representatives. I really fell in love with it and understood the importance of being involved in our state politics and the difference that it can make — the impact it has on people’s lives.
That was my first real introduction to politics. After that, I decided to go to Drake University, where I continued to work at the capitol, and was a clerk for several years. I worked in the state senate for two years, and then I went on and was an intern in Governor Kim Reynolds’ office for a future summer. In fact, that same summer, I worked for Senator Joni Ernst in D.C. for the latter half of the break.
HPR: Was there a moment you realized you wanted to be involved in politics? Were there any role models you looked up to?
JM: I think I had a variety of mentors or role models working at the capitol. Bill Anderson was my former boss in the Senate. I looked up to Bill a lot, and he taught me what it was to be a public servant and how to handle constituents and represent everyone as best as you can.
Dave Heaton is another mentor of mine who was the state representative of my home district that I took over. He was my predecessor and was beloved by everybody —Democrat, Republican, Independent. He was a true bipartisan, peacemaker, and was just very well respected and a great man.
Tom Sands was another former state representative, next to my district, and former Ways and Means chair of the Iowa House. Tom was another one that was very encouraging of me running for office and so from the local side, all those guys were incredibly supportive of me running for office and or eventually mentors to me, and I would credit them to my success as a young legislator in that office.
Ronald Reagan was somebody that my dad talked about frequently, he actually made a bust of him. My dad’s an artist, and he made this bust of Reagan as the Gipper, which is him in his football uniform from a movie. He had a letter that he received from President Reagan back in the late 80s that he always had hanging in his office. Things like that helped shape my worldview to a certain extent, but ultimately it was a combination of both current and former legislators that I had met throughout my time in internships up there, that helped shape my viewpoints and the way I thought government’s role should work in people’s lives, and most effective way to getting things done.
HPR: How did it feel knowing that you would become the youngest Iowa state legislator, and what were some policy goals you wanted to accomplish once in office? Do you think that your age influenced your goals?
JM: It was a pretty surreal experience. I ran when I was 20 years old. Dave Heaton decided to retire, I threw my hat in the ring. It was a four-way primary that I wasn’t supposed to win, but I knocked on thousands of doors across the district, was relatively unknown, and then won the primary. After winning that primary by 100 votes, I was guaranteed to win the general. I had a family friend of ours from the area say one time at an event, “When Joe first ran, he was the only person who thought he could win.” Some people obviously supported me and those sorts of things. But I don’t think anybody thought I could win. At times, I didn’t think I could win.
I just wanted to carry through and make sure I gave it my all, which I did, and then ultimately won that primary, went on to the general election and won in November of 2018, graduated college in December of 2018, and then got sworn into the Iowa House as the youngest member ever in January 2019. Getting to the House was interesting for the first few weeks. I think it took a while for people to realize that I wasn’t still a clerk or a page and that I was an elected, duly elected member of the House with the rest of my Colleagues.
HPR: What was the biggest challenge you faced serving as a legislator that you remember to this day?
JM: I think the biggest challenge is trying to represent your constituency while also following through on your campaign promises, and voting your conscience as well. It’s a balance that I don’t think a lot of people will necessarily be able to do, and some people can’t. Some people don’t do the best job at being an elected official at times. You have to follow through on your campaign promises and stay true to yourself and to your base, the people who got you initially elected, and who helped you get started. You want to stay true to yourself and to them, but you also have to treat people with dignity, at least be empathetic to a certain extent, and listen to people even if you disagree with them.
At that level, you don’t have a huge staff or something, so you’re typically the one that is answering these emails and taking these phone calls, there’s less of a barrier there than like if you’re in Congress or at statewide office, where you can wall off a little bit more on between yourself and the constituency, for better or for worse.
HPR: You are passionate about mental health advocacy. Why did you become interested in this issue? What actions did you take to tackle this issue, either with or without legislation?
JM: Mental health was a big issue when I first got into the legislature because we had a mental health institute in our town in Mount Pleasant. It was closed down two or three years before I got into office. People lost jobs, but more importantly, people lost access to health care in the area. We were in the middle of revamping our regionalized mental health system in Iowa, which we eventually did. Instead of having county homes, we had a regionalized system that helped streamline and make things more efficient. We also passed a kind of groundbreaking children’s mental health reform, and appropriated dollars to that issue for the first time ever, when I was there. It continues to be an issue, and the best way to spend resources is to get people the right access. But it affects law enforcement quite a bit because you have law enforcement dealing with mentally ill people, severely mentally ill, and a system in place to help the most vulnerable people and who sometimes have issues.
HPR: What role did advocating for children’s mental health play in your broader mental health advocacy?
JM: That was part of the children’s mental health legislation that we passed through, and we first appropriated approximately, $3 million a year for children’s mental health specifically, and more money for your guidance counselors for schools so they have the appropriate resources to counsel kids, and to be able to get, the proper infrastructure in there.
HPR: After your time as a state legislator, you founded and are president of Run Gen Z, which provides empowerment for future conservative leaders to thrive. What inspired you to do this, and why do you think it’s important?
JM: We started Run Gen Z in 2020 after I’d been elected. I began talking to young people across the country at different young conservative conferences, and I started getting young people who wanted to run. They would call me. Elliot Engen was one of those young people who is now a state representative in Minnesota. I think he’s the youngest person, or was the youngest person, in the Minnesota House.
I met Elliot at a turning point conference in December 2019 and talked to him about running for office, and he thought I was crazy. He said, ‘Who is going to vote for a 21-year-old?’ I told him, ‘eighty-four hundred people in Iowa’s 84th district.’ A week later, he decided to run for office and would call me every week and ask me for advice on how to form coalitions and put a message together. In March of 2020, COVID-19 hit, and he went on to the general election and lost by 80 votes, and then ran again in 2022 and won. He was one of the only people to win in a swing suburban district in Minnesota in 2022. So, he’s phenomenal, doing great things in the Minnesota House, but his initial interactions with me inspired me to start Run Gen Z, and now we have over 130 elected officials in our coalition that are in state to local, school board to city council, and county board of supervisors to state legislative offices.
Most of them are under 30, some of them are 18. Governor Terry Branstad, the longest-serving governor of Iowa and former ambassador to China, helped us with fundraising and helped us grow exponentially. He’s somebody that also is a mentor of mine, and helped inspire me to start the organization.
HPR: What are the next steps for Joe Mitchell, and what are you looking forward to accomplishing in the future?
JM: The next steps include spending the semester here as a fellow at Harvard. At home in Iowa, I run the Iowa Real Estate Developers Association. I’m a real estate developer, I build workforce housing communities across the state with my partner. I’m going to be doing that, and then eventually transitioning to the Trump administration. For now, I’m enjoying my time being a fellow here at Harvard and am honored to work with so many amazing students.
