Lang
1/24/21
A former Iowa City mayor will now head up the Iowa Democratic Party.
Ross Wilburn was selected Saturday as the party’s chair, earning 64.6% of the vote from the Iowa Democratic Party leadership committee. The first black mayor in Iowa City’s history, Wilburn also becomes the first black person to lead a major political party in Iowa.
Wilburn sat on the Iowa City city council from 2000-2011 and served as mayor from 2006-2007. He moved to Ames in 2014 after taking a job as the diversity officer and an associate program director for the Iowa State University Extension and Outreach economic development team. On Saturday Wilburn said he would quit that job to focus on the chairmanship full-time. He replaces Troy Price, who resigned after last year’s Iowa Caucus debacle in tabulating results.
Wilburn finished sixth in the race for the 2018 Democratic gubernatorial nomination. He ran successfully in a special 2019 election for House District 46, which covers northwest Ames.
June Owens was named the Iowa Democratic Party vice chair, the first black woman to hold such a position for a major political party in Iowa.