Well, Iowa. LOOK WHAT YOU DID.
After years of watching our state become a national battleground over book bans, classroom censorship, and the apparently terrifying prospect of students encountering ideas, Election Night finally gave us something we haven’t had nearly enough of lately.
Reasons to celebrate. Lots of them.
A new governor. A new attorney general. Eleven seats flipped in the Iowa House. A new Democratic U.S. senator. Three newly elected Democratic congresswomen. All in one night.
We’re not saying someone rewrote the script. But if this were a novel, we’d be accusing the author of getting a little carried away with the plot twists.
For everyone who has spent the last several years attending school board meetings, defending librarians, speaking out against censorship, and explaining—again—that reading a book does not constitute an endorsement of everything in it, this was a pretty spectacular Election Night.
And we haven’t even gotten to the part where President Snow appeared on CNN and Fox News. Or where a frequently banned queer romance from 2019 suddenly started looking suspiciously prophetic.
Seriously. What a night to be a book lover.
First, Governor-elect Sand has a veto pen. And he intends to use it.
During a June appearance on Iowa Press, Rob Sand promised a “bill vetoing ceremony” for culture-war legislation.
Not a bill-signing ceremony. A bill-vetoing ceremony.
We would like to know whether there will be refreshments. Possibly commemorative pens. We have some suggestions for the guest list.
And thanks to Election Night, that veto pen just became considerably more consequential.
Democrats flipped 11 seats in the Iowa House, reducing the Republican majority to 56–44. Republicans still control the chamber, but they no longer have enough votes to override a gubernatorial veto without Democratic support.
SF 496 is still law, and Sand cannot repeal it himself. But future legislation expanding book bans or imposing new censorship requirements will face a governor who has publicly promised to veto culture-war bills.
We have spent years watching Iowa politicians celebrate new restrictions on books. The possibility of watching a governor ceremonially reject the next one? Oh, we would absolutely attend. We might even dress up. Please tell us there’s a ribbon-cutting.
Second, Iowa has a new attorney general. And that is very good news for the freedom to read.
Attorney General Brenna Bird has spent years fighting to protect Iowa’s book-banning law. Not the books. The law that takes them away.
Under SF 496, Iowa schools have removed thousands of books, including 1984, To Kill a Mockingbird, Brave New World, Animal Farm, and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. And the consequences don’t stop at empty library shelves. Teachers and librarians who knowingly violate the law more than once can face professional discipline, potentially including the loss of their licenses. Imagine having to choose between keeping an important book available to students and protecting the career you’ve spent years building.
Bird has defended this system and celebrated the state’s success in keeping the law in place. In April, she called it “a huge win” for Iowa parents and warned about children being exposed to inappropriate materials and philosophies. Apparently, protecting Iowa children from George Orwell, Harper Lee, and Maya Angelou is something to celebrate.
And yes, 1984 is on the list. A novel warning about government censorship and the manipulation of truth, removed from school libraries under a government book-banning law. Apparently, the irony is not admissible evidence.
But Election Night delivered a particularly delightful plot twist: Nate Willems will be Iowa’s next attorney general. And we have some rather ambitious hopes for what he might do with that office.
Willems cannot repeal SF 496 himself. But as Iowa’s chief legal officer, he can examine every legal avenue for limiting its reach, reconsider the state’s defense of the law, identify constitutional vulnerabilities, and work with the new administration to reduce its impact on students, educators, and school libraries. We hope he’ll look beyond simply defending a less aggressive version of the same law and instead ask how much of its damage can be undone without waiting for the legislature to act.
We don’t just want Iowa’s next attorney general to be less enthusiastic about banning books. We want him to figure out how to make Iowa’s book-banning law as powerless as legally possible.
Imagine an Iowa attorney general spending time figuring out how to protect books instead of defending the law that removes them. We realize this is a radical concept for the office, but we’re willing to give it a chance. SF 496 may still be on the books. But that doesn’t mean it has to keep having the last word.
Third, the Department of Education may be getting a new chapter, too.
Governor-elect Sand has indicated that he intends to replace Iowa Department of Education director McKenzie Snow. His stated concerns involved the state’s private-school voucher program, not SF 496. But the Department also oversees the rules implementing Iowa’s book-banning law, and changes in leadership could affect how those rules are written and applied.
Annie’s Foundation has documented more than 5,100 book removals involving approximately 1,500 distinct titles in Iowa schools. Different districts have reached different conclusions about the same books, leaving students’ access to literature dependent on where they attend school.
A new director could revisit proposed rules, provide clearer guidance, and reduce unnecessary removals. The law itself would still exist, but the state could stop making a bad situation worse through the way it tells schools to follow it.
We would be delighted to see Iowa’s Department of Education become a place where the goal is helping children read more books, rather than helping adults figure out which ones they shouldn’t. SF 496 may still be the law. But that doesn’t mean Iowa has to keep implementing it in ways that empty library shelves.
Washington, we’d like you to meet Iowa’s new delegation.
Iowa is sending Josh Turek to the U.S. Senate and three newly elected Democratic women to the U.S. House: Christina Bohannan, Lindsay James, and Sarah Trone Garriott.
That’s three of Iowa’s four congressional districts changing hands, along with a U.S. Senate seat. For a state that has spent years making national headlines over book bans, it’s a pretty extraordinary change in who will be representing us in Washington.
We’re hopeful Iowa’s new congressional delegation will support federal legislation protecting students’ freedom to read. No child should lose access to literature, history, or diverse perspectives simply because of where they live. And no state legislature should get to decide that certain books, ideas, or experiences are too dangerous for students to encounter.
Constitutional freedoms really shouldn’t depend on which state legislature is currently most upset about a young adult novel. We realize that’s an ambitious standard, but we thought we’d put it out there.
And as if Iowa’s election results weren’t giving book lovers enough reasons to celebrate, Election Night also delivered two spectacular literary plot twists. One involved a fictional dictator interrupting live election coverage. The other involved a frequently banned queer romance that suddenly looked a little less like political fantasy.
Let’s start with the dictator.
President Snow interrupted Election Night. And it was SPECTACULAR.
Picture it. Americans are watching election returns on CNN and Fox News. Maps are changing colors, pundits are trying to explain what just happened, and Iowa is delivering the kind of political plot twists that would make a novelist nervous.
Suddenly, the broadcast appears to malfunction.
PLEASE STAND BY.
A strange three-panel display appears. Election results remain visible at the bottom of the screen. And then, standing at a microphone, dressed in black and looking every inch the authoritarian head of state, is…
PRESIDENT CORIOLANUS SNOW.
Yes. That President Snow. The ruthless ruler of Panem, played by Ralph Fiennes in the upcoming film adaptation of Suzanne Collins’s Sunrise on the Reaping.
Apparently, Lionsgate looked at Election Night 2026 and thought, You know what this needs? A little more dystopia.
And then they put the fictional dictator from The Hunger Games on both CNN and Fox News during actual election coverage.
We are obsessed.
The stunt was part of a marketing campaign featuring Capitol TV, Panem’s fictional propaganda network. And while actual Americans were voting for actual changes in their government, the fictional authoritarian regime interrupted their television screens with a message:
BREAK THE MACHINE.
On Election Night. On CNN and Fox News.
Whoever dreamed up this campaign deserves a raise. Possibly a medal. Definitely an invitation to our next book club.
But here’s where things get truly delightful. The book behind this spectacular Election Night stunt has already been targeted for restriction.
Among the objections Annie’s Foundation has documented are “violence; subtle LGBT characters,” a recommendation to restrict access to readers 17 and older, and the apparently alarming observation that it “mentions same sex couples.”
Another objection includes alcohol, assassination, blackmail, child abuse, classism, death, drugs, gore, oppression, sexual violence, trauma, and “animal cruelty.”
We’re assuming that last one refers to the carnivorous squirrels attacking tributes in the arena. Although, technically, the cruelty is being inflicted by the squirrels. And they’re not even ordinary squirrels. They’re genetically engineered Capitol murder squirrels.
Apparently, the squirrels are a problem now, too.
But our absolute favorite objection?
“Controversial cultural and social commentary.”
In The Hunger Games.
Someone apparently read a novel about an authoritarian government forcing children to kill one another for televised entertainment and thought, You know what concerns me? The controversial social commentary.
And the same-sex couple. Can’t forget that.
The political commentary isn’t a flaw in The Hunger Games. It’s the entire point. Suzanne Collins writes about propaganda, the abuse of power, and the courage it takes to challenge systems that seem impossible to change.
Which made the timing of this particular advertising stunt so magnificent. On a night when Iowa voters were changing who holds power in their state, President Snow showed up on television to remind everyone what happens when people stop questioning it.
BREAK THE MACHINE.
Well, Iowa certainly gave us something to talk about.
And somewhere, we imagine, a book challenger is preparing a complaint about the squirrels.
Meanwhile, Red, White & Royal Blue would like a word.
As if the Hunger Games stunt weren’t enough literary delight for one election, we also need to talk about Casey McQuiston’s Red, White & Royal Blue.
For anyone unfamiliar with the novel, Alex Claremont-Diaz is the son of America’s first female president. He’s brilliant, ambitious, politically engaged, and very much in the public eye. And he falls in love with Prince Henry of England.
It’s a funny, joyful, unapologetically queer romance about love, identity, politics, and the possibility of building a future that doesn’t look anything like the one people expect.
Naturally, people have tried to ban it. Red, White & Royal Blue has been challenged and removed from school libraries across the country, including here in Iowa. Because apparently, two young men falling in love while navigating the White House, the British monarchy, and international diplomacy is a threat from which students must be protected.
But here’s where Election Night gets particularly delightful.
Alex is a proud Texan. And when his mother’s presidential reelection campaign needs a path to victory, he refuses to accept the conventional wisdom that Texas is permanently out of reach for Democrats.
So he develops a plan.
Not just any plan. A 14-page political strategy memo known as the Texas Binder, laying out exactly how to turn his home state blue.
And in the novel, when the election comes down to Texas?
THE BINDER WORKS.
Texas goes blue. His mother wins reelection. Political fantasy becomes a very satisfying fictional reality.
When McQuiston published Red, White & Royal Blue in 2019, that storyline seemed like the sort of thing that could happen only in a romance novel.
Fast-forward seven years.
On November 3, 2026, Texas elected Gina Hinojosa governor and James Talarico to the U.S. Senate, ending decades-long Democratic droughts in both races.
A BLUE TEXAS. IN REAL LIFE.
Naturally, Red, White & Royal Blue fans lost their collective minds. Social media filled with references to Alex Claremont-Diaz and his legendary Texas Binder.
And the author joined the celebration.
Responding to an Instagram post about the election results, Casey McQuiston wrote:
“It was all in the binder.”
WE LOVE THIS SO MUCH.
Seven years after writing a queer romance in which an ambitious young Texan devises a strategy to accomplish what everyone insists is politically impossible, McQuiston got to watch real-life election results produce a remarkable parallel to the story.
And then got to make the joke themself.
The fictional binder has apparently developed quite a reputation.
But here’s why we’re celebrating this particular literary coincidence in an Iowa newsletter. We’ve spent years being told that Iowa’s political landscape was settled, that the people in power weren’t going anywhere, and that change was unrealistic.
Then Election Night arrived.
Turns out, the plot wasn’t finished.
Red, White & Royal Blue asks readers to imagine a future that everyone around its characters insists is impossible. It takes something conventional wisdom treats as permanent and asks a deceptively simple question:
What if it isn’t?
And it does so through a queer love story that celebrates the freedom to be yourself, the courage to challenge expectations, and the possibility that the world might become something better than it is.
That’s a lovely thing for a book to do. It’s an especially lovely thing for a frequently banned book to do.
Sometimes fiction gets there first.
And apparently, sometimes it comes with a 14-page binder.
Here’s to making history.
What an Election Night.
Iowa elected a new governor and attorney general, flipped 11 seats in the Iowa House, elected a Democratic U.S. senator, and sent three new Democratic congresswomen to Washington. President Snow interrupted CNN and Fox News with a message to BREAK THE MACHINE. And a frequently banned queer romance gave us an unexpectedly delightful reminder that political fantasies sometimes have a way of becoming reality.
You really couldn’t make this up.
Well, apparently Suzanne Collins and Casey McQuiston could. But you know what we mean.
We’re not pretending SF 496 disappeared overnight. Thousands of books are still missing from Iowa school libraries, and there is plenty of work ahead. But after years of fighting book bans, defending librarians, documenting removals, and watching our state make national headlines for all the wrong reasons, we are going to enjoy this moment.
The books are still banned. The fight isn’t over. But for the first time in a while, the next chapter looks genuinely exciting.
And isn’t that the whole point of a good story? That the ending isn’t inevitable? That people can surprise you? That even when the odds look impossible, someone might come along and change everything?
As Casey McQuiston wrote in Red, White & Royal Blue:
“History, huh? Bet we could make some.”
Well, Iowa. Look what you did.
Now let’s get those books back.
