20-year-old college student will be state's youngest female officeholder if she wins runoff against Ames councilman

AMES, Ia. — After class ends at 4 p.m. every Friday, Rachel Junck prepares to knock doors.

Parked at Sawyer Elementary School, her old school, she looks at a map on her phone showing about a dozen homes she wants to hit before it gets too dark.

"You might have heard the election in Ward 4 was so close that it's going to a runoff election," the city council candidate repeats to each willing resident, before telling them where and when they can cast their votes. "I hope to have your support."

If she wins the runoff against incumbent Chris Nelson on Dec. 3, the 20-year-old chemical engineering student at Iowa State University would become the youngest woman elected to any office in state history.

Her friends find that prospect exciting, she said, but she mostly brushes it off.

"It'd be an honor, for sure, to have that title," she said. "But being able to represent a whole different generation of people on the council would be, I think, a bigger honor."

Junck, the daughter of two Ames school teachers, said she can represent both lifelong residents and Iowa State students, who hail from every county in Iowa, every state in the country, and from 115 countries to make up about half of the city's population.

Her twin sister, Taylor, who Junck emphasizes is older by only minutes, studies biomedical engineering at the University of Iowa. Her younger brother, Scott, is also a Hawkeye. "Yep, they're traitors," Junck jokes.

Nelson, 47, who has represented the 4th Ward since 2014, also has deep Ames roots. His ancestors settled in the Ames area before the city was founded, he said. He and his wife are Iowa State alumni — like Junck, Nelson studied chemical engineering as an undergrad — and their three children attend Ames schools.

His years away from Ames, while attending the University of Iowa for a second master's degree and working in Chicago and Des Moines, gave him a "fresh set of perspectives," he said.

"When it came time to settle down, my wife and I decided that Ames was where we wanted to be," said Nelson, vice president of the Nelson Electric Company.

Neither hoped for a runoff, but it's not uncommon in races with three or more candidates.

Still, Junck was nearly able to avert it on Nov. 5, pulling in 604 votes, or 49.51%. Just seven more votes would have provided her the 50%-plus-one-vote majority needed to win, Story County election results show.

Nelson finished with 34.34%, or 419 votes. Fewer than 200 votes were cast for a third candidate, Joe Van Erdewyk.

Junck's age, she said, was met with some skepticism from voters who questioned whether a student has enough time to sit on the council. Junck says her aggressive campaigning schedule proves she can do it.

"Now, with winning a lot of votes, I definitely think I'm seen as a legitimate candidate," she said.

Nelson's campaign doesn't see Junck's age as disqualifying, he said.

"You can't rest on your laurels," Nelson said. "I don't take anything for granted, and I respect all my opponents."

Nelson said his strategy before Dec. 3 is to communicate his "knowledge, experience, perspective and beliefs that have been good additions to the council," he said. In the past six years, he's also acted as a "mediator to bring consensus on issues" within the council, he said.

► More:Ames pushes back on federal request to change crosswalks

Both candidates say they have sustainability goals for the 4th Ward. Nelson said sustainability has improved during his tenure, and he will make continuing those efforts a major priority.

Junck agreed that Ames has seen positive movement on sustainable issues.

Recently, Ames Electric Services began offering monthly credits to customers who make a one-time $300 investment in a local solar farm. The city's resource recovery plant was the first municipally owned and operated waste-to-energy facility in the nation; it burns local garbage to create fuel for the power plant while reducing landfill usage.

But Junck wants Ames to be carbon neutral.

"Climate change is really important to me," she said. "Taking local action and making sure we have climate action plans so we can start to lower our emissions over the years is something that I've really brought to the conversation. ... I think there are more concrete steps we can take."

Spotting a purple yard sign bearing her name, Junck excitedly knocks the door of her second-grade teacher. She ditches her usual runoff explanation for a friendly greeting, opting to come inside and warm up for a couple of minutes.

Veralynn Schilling, Junck's former teacher, and her husband, Kevin Schilling, a former Iowa State music professor, recalled how excited they were to vote absentee for her — only to call from out of state to check the results and learn of how close she came to a majority.

"Seven votes," Junck repeats. "We'll keep working for it."

Shelby Fleig covers news and features for the Register. Reach her at shelbyfleig@dmreg.com or 515-214-8933.

Your subscription makes work like this possible. Subscribe today at DesMoinesRegister.com/Deal.