DES MOINES — Democratic gubernatorial candidate Nate Boulton — under fire for sexual harassment claims raised against him by three women — announced Thursday that he was suspending his campaign for governor while Iowa Senate colleagues demanded he resign his legislative seat as well.
“I am so proud of the campaign that my staff, my supporters, and I ran in the past year,” Boulton, 38, said in a statement. “I was and still am inspired every day by the people who have chosen to fight alongside me in the Senate and on the campaign trail to share a positive vision forward for this incredible state of Iowa.
“Democrats must win in November so we can begin to turn our state around,” added Boulton, a first-term state senator. “We join together to support the nominee and elect Democrats up and down the ticket. I will do all II can to support that mission and will never stop fighting for progressive causes.”
Shortly after Boulton suspended his gubernatorial campaign with less than two weeks until the June 5 primary election, Senate Democratic Leader Janet Petersen of Des Moines called on him to step down as a state senator as well.
“Sexual harassment is unacceptable whether it occurs in a social or professional setting. What we have learned in the last 24 hours makes it clear to me that Sen. Boulton should also resign his position in the Iowa Senate,” said Petersen in a statement. “If he chooses not to do so, I will support a full, independent investigation into allegations against him.”
Sen. Rick Bertrand, R-Sioux City, echoed that sentiment at a Thursday morning GOP meet-and-greet event in Sioux City, calling on Boulton to “do the right thing” and resign from the Iowa Senate immediately.
“There is no place for sexual harassment in the Iowa Senate, those aren’t my words, those are the words of Nate Boulton from the Iowa Senate floor.” said Bertrand, who noted that Boulton criticized former Senate Majority Leader Bill Dix and Senate Republicans of sexual misconduct on multiple occasions during Senate floor speeches this past legislative session.
“If you grandstand and preach a no tolerance policy for political points, then I ask how Sen. Boulton can now continue in the Iowa Senate?” Bertrand said in a statement. “Nate’s inability to deny or refute these allegations is not only disturbing, but hypocritical.”
Boulton became embroiled in a sexual misconduct scandal Wednesday and three of his five rivals by evening were calling on him to quit the race.
The controversy began when the Des Moines Register reported Wednesday afternoon that three women — all lawyers and two of them law school classmates of Des Moines lawyer and state senator Boulton — made the allegations.
According to the Register, one woman said Boulton repeatedly grabbed her buttocks in a bar in 2015 while his wife was nearby.
The other women said that at social gatherings while they were in law school about a decade and a half ago, Boulton, while clothed, repeatedly pressed his erect penis into their thighs.
The newspaper named two of the women and reported the allegations of the third anonymously. The Register said the women decided to share their stories partly because of the #Me Too movement, but did not say specifically whether the newspaper had sought them out for interviews or whether the women had approached the newspaper.
“These the last 48 hours have been trying,” Boulton said in his statement suspending his 2018 campaign that made no mention of his future Senate plans. “I again offer an apology to those whom I have harmed in any way. It is my hope there is some positive that can come from this moment as we strive to be the better people we can be in the coming days, weeks, months, and years. I know that will be my task moving on from here.
“Thank you to everyone who stood with me in this campaign, especially the countless working families of the labor movement who joined me in this race and must now continue to fight for their way of life in this state,” he added.
According to polls, Boulton had been running second to Fred Hubbell for the Democratic nomination to face GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds in November.
Sexual harassment has been a recurring issue in the gubernatorial campaign and state government this past year.
In 2017, a former Senate Republican staffer won a $1.75 million settlement from the state after she alleged sexual harassment and retaliation at the Capitol.
In March, Dix, a Shell Rock Republican, resigned from the Senate after he was captured on video kissing a female lobbyist in a Des Moines bar.
A Senate clerk was fired for sexually offensive comments.
And Reynolds fired a longtime friend and director of the Iowa Finance Authority, Dave Jamison, after receiving accounts of him sexually harassing employees.
Stay with The Gazette as we follow this story throughout the day.