The special election to replace Mike Sexton in the Iowa House of Representatives will be on Tuesday.

The candidates are Democrat Rachel Burns, of Odebolt, and Republican Wendy Larson, also of Odebolt.

They are vying to represent House District 7, which includes Calhoun, Pocahontas and Sac counties plus western Webster County.

Sexton, a Republican from Rockwell City, resigned from his House seat on Sept. 19 to become the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s director of rural development for Iowa.

Sexton was first elected to the Iowa House of Representatives in 2014. He had been the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee since 2022.

He was a state senator from 1999 to 2003. After leaving the Senate, he served on the Rockwell City-Lytton and South Central Calhoun school boards.

Burns is a speech therapist, volunteer firefighter, emergency medical technician and medical examiner investigator.

“I want to effect change in health care, education and day-to-day survival,” Burns said during a Sept. 21 visit to Fort Dodge.

Her priorities include raising the minimum wage, and eliminating what she calls the “corrupt voucher system” that enables parents to use public money to pay for private school tuition. She also wants to stop the use of eminent domain for private profit.

Larson describes herself as a “lifetime constitutional conservative.”

She has said she is opposed to the use of eminent domain to acquire land for carbon dioxide pipelines. She said she is also opposed to “foreign land ownership endangering security and indoctrination of children in schools.”

She earned a bachelor’s degree in marketing from Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado. She is a small business owner.