Chris McGowan, Dave Dawson share plans to lower fuel costs at 4th District debate

In the first 4th Congressional District of Iowa debate, candidates offered their own solutions to lower gas prices but also expressed concern about cuts to the federal gas tax.

The race to succeed U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra is between Republican Chris McGowan, the Siouxland Chamber of Commerce president and a veteran, and Democrat Dave Dawson, who previously served as prosecutor in the Woodbury County Attorney’s Office and as a state lawmaker.

Though the seat is open, the 4th Congressional District has long been a conservative stronghold in Iowa. While other congressional races in the state are considered hotly contended in the upcoming Nov. 3, 2026, election, the 4th District seat is rated by political forecasters as a “solid” Republican seat.

As the two candidates faced off in a debate Wednesday evening hosted by KTIV in Sioux City, they emphasized their commitment to having a “civil” discussion while discussing their disagreements on policy proposals. McGowan said he and Dawson have talked before, having met over the summer at the Woodbury County Fair, “and both of us had a very civil conversation and agreed to run campaigns that were rooted in civil discourse and respect.”

Both McGowan and Dawson agreed that Congress needed to take action to lower costs — including finding ways to lower high fuel costs — but presented different approaches on how to achieve this goal.

McGowan said he believes increasing U.S. energy production is key to lowering costs across the board for Iowans, including on groceries and other goods.

“We have to remember that every good place in the stream of commerce travels via truck, trailer, air, train, and the fuel costs associated with that transportation has become ridiculously expensive,” McGowan said. “… One of the most impactful things that we can do, and the Republicans have been talking about for decades, is to maximize the production of energy at home, to make sure that we are the leading provider of energy in the world, and that we rely on domestic energy sources, not international. When we do that, and we drill, and we produce energy, and we lead the world in energy production, those prices are certain to come down.”

The Republican candidate said completing the Keystone XL pipeline project would bring in needed oil. The project has faced significant pushback and delays due to U.S. environmental concerns and disputes over the use of indigenous land, but Trump said in August he is seeking to revive the project.

“Unfortunately, for political reasons, the opposition party killed that project,” McGowan said of the Keystone XL pipeline. “Now, they cited environmental concerns and other concerns. But the reality is if we had access to that today, we wouldn’t be paying the prices that we’re paying at the fuel pump, so we have to begin to look further into the future rather than one election ahead.”

But Dawson said the best way to reduce fuel costs was to end the U.S. war with Iran. He criticized his opponent for not taking a position on the U.S. continued presence and military action in Iran during a time when some of McGowan’s children are deployed as members of the U.S. military.

“I have prayed for his children who are deployed and may be serving overseas related to this conflict,” Dawson said. “But it’s important to me that we not put American lives at risk … Why are we in the Middle East fighting a war that isn’t our war to fight? We have no imminent threat to our country, and we need to focus on fixing the problems here at home. The billions of dollars that have already been spent on this war could be better directed, fixing our roads, fixing our bridges, fixing our broken and ailing healthcare system where people have faced cut after cut over the last year with regards to healthcare funding.”

McGowan said that as someone who is not a current member of Congress, he did not have access to classified information about the war and the decisions made by the military.

“I do think it would be premature and perhaps a little irresponsible for me to comment without having access to that data,” he said. “But, like my opponent and so many other Americans, I hope that we will have a speedy and quick resolution to this conflict in Iran.”

While lowering fuel costs was a top priority, both Dawson and McGowan expressed potential cncerns suspending the federal fuel tax — a proposal other Iowa candidates from both parties running in the 2026 election have backed.

McGowan said he was “certainly open to a conversation in Congress with other members to say, ‘we’ve reached the point where we have to provide relief to the consumer, so let’s consider suspending the federal gas tax.'” However, he said, “if you do that, you have to recognize that the infrastructure is going to suffer enormously.”

“We’re increasing the amount of trucking and traffic — people who travel on Highway 20 or Interstate 80 in the 4th Congressional District know that these are very heavily traversed roads,” he said. “So we have to be careful about taking those dollars away.”

Dawson also said he believed discussions on suspending the federal fuel tax should include discussions on how to provide other funding sources for roads and infrastructure.

“It’d be important to make sure we have the funding we need to fix the roads and bridges in Iowa,” Dawson said. “We have some of the worst quality roads in bridges of all the states in the United States. So if we are going to cut taxes, we need to make sure we understand that there’ll be consequences to that.”

However, Dawson said he did not believe suspending this tax would not significantly lower fuel costs.

“Really, what’s important at the federal level, though, is cutting the federal gas tax will not address the huge increase that has happened with gas prices,” Dawson said. “… A more than 25% increase in gas prices would not be affected by cutting the federal gas tax. You really need to get to the source of the problem, which is ending the war in Iran.”