Iowa governor: Steve King needs to decide if he wants to represent ‘the values of the 4th District’

Iowa’s Republican governor suggested Tuesday that Iowa congressman Steve King (R) needs to do more to represent the values of his district’s constituents in a fiery statement.

Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) told the Des Moines Register on Tuesday that she hasn’t spoken with King since his single-digit victory over J.D. Scholten (D) in last Tuesday’s midterms, but said King’s values and past remarks do not align with the values of Iowa voters.

{mosads}“I think that Steve King needs to make a decision if he wants to represent the people and the values of the 4th District or do something else, and I think he needs to take a look at that,” Reynolds told the newspaper.

A representative for King did not respond directly to Reynolds’ criticism, but praised Reynolds’ partnership with the congressman on past bills in an email to The Hill.

“Congressman King loves Gov. Reynolds, is thankful to her for signing his heartbeat bill into law, and notes that they are birds of a feather because they won by similar margins,” the spokesman said.

King won reelection last week with 50.4 percent of the vote in Iowa’s 4th congressional district after a late-surging campaign from Scholten combined with condemnations of King’s past statements about race and diversity from prominent Republicans endangered his campaign.

Last December, King was criticized after he said that diversity is not a “strength” for the U.S., and more recently was the subject of audio released by the conservative Weekly Standard magazine in which he appeared to refer to immigrants coming from Mexico as “dirt.”