Adam Peters is challenging a former friend and political ally, Ken Croken, for the same seat he helped Croken win in 2024.
Croken is a known ally to women, People of Color and the LGBTQ+ community. He’s been endorsed by Aime Wichtendahl, Iowa’s first-ever openly transgender elected official, for re-election to the Iowa House District 97 seat Peters wants. Croken is a constant supporter of Iowa’s Black and Brown Caucus and in March was named among Iowa’s Top 10 most effective Democratic state representatives by Vanderbilt University.
Peters (left) and Croken now as competitors for the Iowa House District 97 Democratic primary, which has no Republican opponent for the general election and thus will decide who fills the seat.
But if you were only to watch the social media campaign outreach of Peters, you’d think he was in a “high-stakes battle” taking on a scary far-right opponent who’s never there for “us.”
Peters’ persistent misleading “us versus them” rhetoric and choice to gracelessly transform an ally into an enemy, literally tainting a former friend and supporter’s career and misleading an entire community to join him in doing so, is just one reason we must object to Peters’ candidacy and recommend strongly against choosing him on the ballot Tuesday.
Grave concerns about back-stabbing, misleading rhetoric, lack of transparency, outsider funding, social media dependence
We hold grave concerns about Peters’ “erasure-turned-attack” of Croken, a proven ally with whom Peters smilingly posed just two months before announcing he was seeking Croken’s seat. We object to the fact that Peters’ campaign is vastly funded by people and groups outside of his district; his refusal to engage in communication that he does not fully control; his irresponsible flouting of the line between nonprofits and political campaigning; and the contrast between campaign trail claims of unity and a real-life pattern of planting division and utilizing privilege to selectively promote and/or suppress community members.
It’s almost shocking that we are listing five reasons NOT to elect a candidate just endorsed Friday by national LGBTQ+ darling and Biden transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg and by more than a dozen prominent local LGBTQ+ community leaders.
Cult of personality is strong, dangerous and needs to be countered even when on the left. A lot of innocent people get caught up in feeling emotional attachment to someone they realize later was not looking out for the greater good.
The fact Peters has built such broad and emotional attachment among voters, while undertaking a campaign fraught with the ethical holes we will outline below, is deeply alarming. He clearly is taking the community by emotional storm – yet also clearly not ready to wield his substantial communication and persuasive abilities in an ethical manner that best serves voters and the greater good.
Based on the huge role that omission, erasure, persona crafting, selective support and suppression, and hyperbole play in Peters’ campaign painted in altruism, we feel it’s essential for the health of not only Davenport and the Quad Cities’ LGBTQ+ community, but the state of Iowa, to explain why we so strongly object to Peters’ candidacy and encourage supporting incumbent State Rep. Ken Croken for Iowa State House District 97.
Above, Ken Croken (far left) and Adam Peters (far right) smile for photos at a fundraiser Croken hosted for Clock Inc. in August 2025, two months before Peters announced he was pursuing Croken’s legislative seat. Also pictured: The Project of the Quad Cities marketing director Tyler Mitchell, Croken’s former communications assistant but now a Peters financial supporter and volunteer; Aime Wichtendahl, Iowa’s first-ever transgender elected official who has endorsed Croken; and Wyatt A., a volunteer at Clock Inc. where Peters was once operations manager, who has endorsed Peters.
Concern #1: Peters’ Erasure-Turned-Attack of Croken
Especially given the role that erasure is playing right now among challenged identities like LGBTQ+ people by the Trump administration, Peters’ comfort with attempted erasure of Croken should be unforgivable as a politician and candidate.
For months, Peters comfortably portrayed his campaign as fighting a lofty fight against some unknown (but Republican) oppressive force, before people began asking why he was taking on Croken, a Democratic candidate Peters had frequently praised – including in this November 2024 Facebook post where Peters called Croken “a loud and proud advocate for LGBT+ rights” who is “consistently showing up for our community” and models “what true allyship looks like.”
Peters’ campaign bio commits the ultimate selfish insult: mentioning his volunteer experience supporting Croken as part of his credentials, while failing to clarify he’s now challenging the very person he’s boasting of helping to elect. He has rarely shown Croken the basic respect of acknowledging him on his social media campaigning or statements, whereas other incumbent challengers are at some point transparent that they are primarying an incumbent fellow Democrat. Or, they at least have the basic decency of choosing not to intermingle their attacks on fellow Democrats with their attacks of Republicans.
Not so in this race. Peters seems to know no ethical boundaries in his campaigning. He has chosen the path of demonizing his opponent without actually even acknowledging him. It might be effective politics – but it’s not healthy or respectable politics and is unbefitting treatment of any Democrat serving as effectively as Croken has in deep red Iowa. Taking into account that Croken and Peters were collaborators and friends for years, teaming up to raise thousands of dollars for Peters’ former employer Clock Inc., Peters’ choice to campaign with erasure and attack of Croken at its heart carries even more disturbing meaning.
Peters forces us to ask ourselves: what kind of politician would not only toss aside a supportive and respected colleague, but then proceed to try and erase them, and FURTHERMORE rally the community against them? A ruthless politician, that’s what kind. MainStream disagrees with this needlessly callous approach Peters has chosen to advance his political career through this campaign.
Concern #2: Contrast between campaign rhetoric and real-life
This leads to our next-greatest concern: the contrast between Peters’ campaign rhetoric and reality. As mentioned, Peters has claimed the “stakes are high” during his primary campaign. He’s portrayed himself as someone who is always seeking to create unity in a community and is there for all.
These proclamations are not true in practice.
In reality, there are no stakes at all in the Croken/Peters race. It’s one of the most low-stakes Democratic primaries ever, with both Croken and Peters pushing for clean water, better access to health care, and a higher minimum wage. Their only real difference is age – and now, sadly, campaign ethics.
Peters has built an “inclusive” campaign persona that doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. Even during his campaign, he has glorified one of two LGBTQ+ sports organizations, to the extreme – and engaged in another round of attempted erasure of another. For years, we heard from therapists in the Quad Cities region who felt “shut out” of any opportunity to work with Clock Inc. where Peters was operations director.
His love of erasure has also extended to MainStream: to this day, Peters’ decision years ago to exclude MainStream from Clock Inc.’s community resources directory remains, with instead the publication Peters chose, located five hours away and now out of existence, still highlighted in a space from which MainSream is excluded under Peters’ directive. Yeah, surviving erasure is hard; we know from experience.
Peters’ unity extends only as far as fandom of himself. If you ever dare to differ with Peters, you will learn painfully just how hollow are his claims of authentic community unity. Peters’ tactics of selective self-serving support portrayed as community unity will be especially harmful at a state level if allowed to continue unchecked.
He also has yet to explain what many might call “backstabbing:” portraying Croken, a politician who again Peters praised effusively for years and who was recently named as among Iowa’s Top 10 Most Effective Democratic State Representatives, as ineffective. Truth collides with reality too frequently for our comfort level when it comes to Peters’ campaign.
Peters has repeatedly and visibly escalated the visibility of the Pride in Motion nonprofit sports league in the Quad Cities, and raised money for the group as a candidate, while never mentioning Out Sports, a second nonprofit sports league also serving the Quad Cities.
Concern #3: Using Social media and controlled communication only
Peters does not appear to have participated in an interview throughout his relatively long candidacy, which he kicked off eight months ago. By contrast, he appears to spend HOURS daily creating scripted videos for social media and cute (often staged or produced) moments. He has not responded to at least six requests from MainStream to answer basic questions about his candidacy.
It is impermissible for someone who planted himself before corporate media excessively in his years of leading Clock Inc., to become LESS accessible to the media when pursuing the honor and responsibility of holding public office. It’s tangibly bad for our community’s mental health for a candidate to be so dependent on social media and luring everyone to it ever more frequently. It’s unhealthy that the only way voters can learn about this candidate is through controlled and propagandistic communication, either through social media or by direct conversation at campaign events on or the campaign trail, but never seeing, hearing or reading them answer tough questions from people who are not supporters or potential supporters.
No one has had any chance to ask Peters, in an objective environment or scenario, the essential questions already noted: about turning on an ally, the basis of his hyped-up “high-stakes” claims, and what voters can take from his campaign strategies about how he will serve in office. At minimum, this is deeply disrespectful to voters.
Concern #4: Disrespecting the Boundary between Nonprofit and Political Campaigning
Which leads us to one of the most grave concerns of all: Peters’ disrespect for the sacred line between nonprofits and political campaigning – meaning placing nonprofits in scenarios where they end up abetting opportunities for campaign exposure at their nonprofit events and/or where their resources (including online social media pages) are not equally serving both competitors in a race.
Yes, world, everything is politics – but not everything is political campaigning. And indeed, rules exist to protect us from that.
Experts are clear: nonprofits need to stay far away from political activity. Here’s how the Foundation Group puts it: “Nonprofits are strictly prohibited from getting involved in political campaigns. This means no endorsing candidates, no campaign signs on your property, no fundraising for political candidates, and no using organizational resources to support a campaign…. Donations to these organizations are tax-deductible for the donor, which is a huge incentive for people to give. In exchange for this perk, nonprofits are required by law to stay completely neutral when it comes to political candidates. This isn’t a gray area—the rule is absolute.”
Peters has flouted those rules – or at least the spirit of them – from the birth of his candidacy. He began hinting at “a run” for office while promoting one of his “runs” to raise money for Clock Inc., when still operations director at Clock Inc. On Nov. 17, he built (and then later celebrated in a campaign post) a pile of inappropriate nonprofit overlap: while speaking at a nonprofit choir concert, representing the nonprofit he used to lead, at a nonprofit church, Peters made essentially a campaign speech that included a set-up intro by a church member emphasizing that the church where they were sitting was locaed in Peters’ district, encouraging attendees to support Peters.
He has continued this unsavory mingling of the nonprofit world with his political campaign for months, including highlighting one of those two nonprofit sports leagues. This is wrong in so many ways – not to mention, potentially endangering the nonprofit status of every nonprofit where Peters has appeared with his campaign attire, every nonprofit that has been featured on Peters’ campaign social media often featuring him in his campaign shirt, every nonprofit where Peters spoke or appeared where people were made aware he was a candidate and where Croken was not invited, every social media post by a nonprofit that shows Peters in campaign gear but not Croken’s logo …. This is likely more than a dozen nonprofits in this jeopardy, if anyone were to actually enforce IRS rules. If they haven’t violated their actual nonprofit charter, these groups are violating the spirit of it by engaging in subtle or overt campaigning on behalf of Peters.
Peters has created a situation where, if he loses, he’s got a pile of campaign money he can mete out to his nonprofit friends. And if he wins, he’ll be beholden in reality if not formally to the organizations whose resources he relied on to get elected. They in turn are set up to expect Peters to continue his direct advocacy for them as a candidate, which would be impermissible.
This entire scenario of overlap between nonprofits and political campaigning has gone too far. If allowed to happen everywhere as it has in Peters’ campaign, this overlap would forever dirty up both the nonprofit and political world even more so than Citizens United has. At minimum, we’d see less nonprofit involvement all around – with this set of nonprofits blatantly lining up behind their favorite liberal/Democratic candidate, and this other set of nonprofits polarizing themselves behind their favorite conservative/Republican politics, and all nonprofits losing the cross-over nonpartisan involvement they need to serve everyone.
Concern #5 Out-of-district funding and endorsements
A significant majority of Peters’ financial support comes from outside of the 97th district. We’re talking somewhere between $25,000 and $30,000 of his total raised of $37,000 coming from outside District 97. A whopping $24,000 of that money was raised during the first two days of Peters’ candidacy in October, when no doubt the majority of donors had no idea they were funding Peters’ sudden turnabout demonization of someone he had JUST helped get elected less than a year before.
One has to ask: with Peters so active around district 97 in his campaign, why is such a huge proportion of his financial backing from outside of it? Who is HE beholden to the most, if not district voters? Also, what does all of this say about the role of this race in Peters’ political career: is this merely a stepping stone for him to run for higher office? The much-heralded endorsement of Peters provided by his former boss Pete Buttigieg, on whose presidential campaign Peters served, further raises the question (Croken said he was nevereven given the opportunity to earn Buttigieg’s endorsement).
What Peters could’ve, should’ve done
As progressives, we support ethical and fact-based challenges to incumbents and lively debate over the issues. The problem here is how Peters has gone about his challenge: actually not debating the issues, relying on obfuscation and voter confusion, and creating, fueling and leveraging division even among the like-minded, and calling it all “community.”
The 37-year-old Peters would only have needed to wait another two-year term to run with the blessing of Croken, a mentor and clearly someone who helped open political doors for Peters, and a clean shot at the Democratic nomination in a seat currently without a Republican opponent. In fact, he could have made a bigger difference for his actual community of Davenport by pursuing a lower, local seat first, gaining experience he clearly does not yet have in ethical communication and governing.
Instead, Peters has placed political ambition first, and in pursuit of it has chosen to tarnish the twilight years of a politician whose record shows he deserves better.
So do the voters of the 97th district – as well as the two-thirds or more of voters unable to vote in the closed primary election between Croken and Peters June 2, meaning all independents and Republicans.
They along with Democrats who will be voting deserve a state representative who is going to be up front about their motives, associations, actions and affiliations. Who is rooted in consistent authenticity and able to show that even those with whom he disagrees are part of the community he represents. Who is lessening polarization rather than creating it where there was none, and only for the sake of political ambition.
Peters has already shown us he will not be up front in his political rhetoric, that he will knowingly create conflict even among allies and friends to achieve his political goals and will solicit others to join him in that voluntary self-generated conflict. Worse yet, he’s shown us he’s willing to mask his ambition as altruism.
If Peters wins, we hope he’ll take this editorial to heart and work out the clear ethical contradictions we’ve noted in his rhetoric and strategies, and that he’ll serve District 97 with greater honesty and compassion for others than he’s exhibited in his campaign. If he loses, let’s hope Peters brushes up on ethics before he goes after another political position and engages in another campaign like this one, pocked with ethical holes.
For the vote June 2 – in the interests of transparency, true rather than selective community, honoring boundaries between charity work and political campaigning, and basic decency – we recommend choosing incumbent State Rep. Ken Croken for Iowa State House District 97.
This editorial was co-authored by Lead Contributor Caleb Sneeden and Editor Christine Hawes. Top photo shows Croken and Peters in a November 2024 post by Peters praising Croken as a “a loud and proud advocate for LGBT+ rights” who is “consistently showing up for our community” and models “what true allyship looks like.” Responses to this editorial will be published if received by 9 a.m, Mon., June 1 and if void of hyperbole, distortions or deception by omission.
