Rob Sand is the Democratic nominee for governor of Iowa and the only Democrat holding statewide office there. He has also become a favorite of the Third Way and Searchlight Institute wing of Democratic consultants, who have spent the past year encouraging Democrats to abandon transgender people and adopt at least a few anti-trans positions ; Searchlight’s founder, Adam Jentleson, told The Atlantic this month that Sand has “taken some of the cultural issues that dog Democrats in red states off the table.” Now Sand is at the head of a wave of prominent Democratic candidates choosing to throw transgender people under the bus in their pursuit of power. In an interview with Politico’s Jonathan Martin, Sand gave his clearest endorsement yet of anti-trans sports bans, stating, “I just think girls’ sports are for girls and boys’ sports are for boys,” while decrying members of his own party who are “much more focused on other cultural stuff.”