On May 24, 2017, Reynolds became governor of Iowa upon the resignation of Branstad, who stepped down to become
United States Ambassador to China. She is Iowa's first female governor.
Elections 2018 In June 2017, Reynolds said she would seek a full term as governor of Iowa in the 2018 election. Reynolds's decision to have Representative
Steve King co-chair her campaign stirred controversy, as King has a history of remarks that have been described as racist.
The Des Moines Register editorial board wrote, "Gov. Kim Reynolds has kept him on as her campaign co-chairman, while muttering increasingly thin-lipped denials that she agrees with his ideological extremism." Reynolds had previously praised King, saying he was "a strong defender of freedom and our conservative values". After Election Day, Reynolds criticized King and said that he needed to change his approach. Reynolds won the Republican nomination for governor and defeated
Democrat Fred Hubbell and
Libertarian Jake Porter in the general election, 50% to 48%. She won nearly the entire state west of Des Moines. In particular, she dominated the state's
4th congressional district, which she carried with 59% of the vote. Reynolds is the first woman elected governor of Iowa.
2022 Reynolds was reelected to a second full term, defeating
Democratic nominee Deidre DeJear, 58% to 40%.
First term Reynolds's elevation to the governorship created a vacancy in the office of lieutenant governor. Reports indicated that Reynolds's selection of a lieutenant governor could be challenged in the
Iowa Supreme Court. An opinion from the
Attorney General of Iowa indicated that "an individual promoted from lieutenant governor to governor, as was Reynolds, [did] not have the authority to appoint a new lieutenant governor." On May 25, 2017, Reynolds announced that Iowa Public Defender
Adam Gregg would serve as acting lieutenant governor; to avoid litigation, the Reynolds administration stated that Gregg "[would] not hold the official position of lieutenant governor" and would not succeed Reynolds in the event of her inability to serve as governor. In 2020, she proposed a one-cent increase in the
state sales tax (bringing it to 8 cents), offset by a phased reduction in the
state income tax, including a cut in the rate for the top bracket from 9% to 5.5%. Reynolds's proposed restructuring of the state tax code would represent a further reduction in income taxes, going beyond 2018 legislation (passed by Republicans in the state legislature and signed into law by Reynolds) that was the largest income tax cut in Iowa history. In 2018, after the
U.S. Supreme Court's decision in
Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), Reynolds called
same-sex marriage a "settled" issue and said that she did not consider herself obligated to follow the
Iowa Republican Party platform provision against same-sex marriage. Reynolds has supported some of
Donald Trump's positions. Reynolds blocked Miller from including Iowa in a legal challenge to the Trump administration's repeal of the
Clean Power Plan, an
Obama-era regulation that restricted
emissions of greenhouses gases (such as
carbon) to counteract
climate change. In 2018, she acknowledged that
Trump's trade and tariff policies were hurting American farmers (as agriculture exports declined due to tariffs imposed by other nations in retaliation for Trump's tariffs), but then claimed that farmers would ultimately benefit. Reynolds made campaign appearances with Trump during the
2020 presidential campaign; in the November election, Trump
carried Iowa, but lost nationally to
Joe Biden, who won both the
electoral vote and the national popular vote. Also in May 2018, she signed a "
fetal heartbeat bill", one of the nation's most restrictive abortion bans. In January 2019, an Iowa state judge struck the law down as unconstitutional. Reynolds chose not to appeal, saying she did not believe that "a losing legal battle" would advance the
anti-abortion cause.
Second term Reynolds began her first full term on January 18, 2019. In March 2019, she signed into law a bill requiring public universities to protect all speech on campus. Through her judicial appointments, Reynolds shifted the Iowa Supreme Court to the
right. Her attorney, Sam Langholz, was appointed to a position in the attorney general's office to defend her policies in court. In December 2019, Reynolds launched an anti-vaping social media campaign in an effort to reduce vaping among Iowa youth. In July 2020, she signed legislation that raised the minimum legal age to buy
tobacco products, including vaping products, to 21. From 2017 to April 2020, Reynolds
restored the voting rights of 543 felons, more than the roughly 200 restorations that her predecessor gave over almost seven years in office. Explaining her order, Reynolds referred to her experiences two decades earlier, when she twice pleaded guilty to
DUI and subsequently recovered from
alcoholism, an experience she cites as an important turning point in her life. A Republican donor who is influential in the pork industry placed the winning bid. The director of the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board said that he did not believe the auction violated state law, but attorneys for two former Democratic governors of Iowa said that it created the
appearance of impropriety and was an error in judgment. A separate pork production company that had donated $25,000 to Reynolds's campaign received a disproportionate benefit from a state pandemic business-aid program, receiving 72% of the program's initial rounds of disbursements. After the testing came to light in January 2021, Polk County Supervisor
Matt McCoy criticized Reynolds, and
State Auditor Rob Sand began an investigation into whether special treatment was accorded to political donors over
essential workers and vulnerable persons. In 2025, she joined a letter opposing
2018 California Proposition 12 and supporting the Save Our Bacon Act (). In March 2021, Reynolds signed into law a bill that shortened the hours of polling places on Election Day, reduced the
early voting period, and required that absentee ballots be received by ballot places before the end of Election Day. She said the legislation would protect election integrity. Later that month, she signed legislation that would allow landlords to reject tenants who pay rent with
Section 8 vouchers. Reynolds signed SF 542 to loosen
child labor laws and sent the U.S. Secretary of Labor a letter that said: "I am writing on behalf of small businesses across Iowa that are facing excessive fines due to the U.S. Department of Labor's enforcement of youth labor laws." In 2025, she signed HF 889, enacting
paid family leave for state employees.
COVID-19 pandemic During the
COVID-19 pandemic, Reynolds opposed
face mask mandates. She signed a Proclamation of Disaster Emergency on March 9, 2020. Also that month, she ordered closures of some recreational businesses and additional school closures and ordered a halt to "non-essential" or elective surgeries, including surgical abortions, but implemented no stay-at-home orders. Reynolds did not implement a requirement to wear masks in public places until after the November 2020 election, when she ordered the mandatory wearing of masks at large gatherings. In the absence of any evidence of her contention, in July 2020, Reynolds said that Iowa localities' mask mandates were "not appropriate" and unlawful,
Iowa City's mayor rejected Reynolds's claim and issued a municipal order requiring the use of face coverings in indoor public places. He cited the state constitution's
home-rule authority and a state statute that grants mayors powers during a time of "emergency or public danger". She was eventually sued for refusing to release public records related to the program, which was plagued with errors. In July 2020, Reynolds said she would invalidate some
school districts' plans to limit in-person classes to one day a week for most students, with online learning on other days, overriding local school districts and requiring students to spend at least half of their schooling in classrooms. The state teachers' union, the Iowa State Education Association, criticized her move. Iowa public school teachers began sending Reynolds their obituaries in protest. Despite the outcry from teachers, who noted that
social distancing was often impossible in school settings and that many teachers had not yet been vaccinated, in late January 2021 Reynolds signed a bill, passed by the state legislature along party lines, that required school districts to provide full-time in-person classes upon parents' request. and 26% in September. COVID-19 in Iowa peaked in November 2020, but remained high into the next year. In late January 2021, the state had the nation's third-highest positivity rate In September 2020, the Reynolds administration broke with the CDC's quarantine guidelines, revoking guidelines recommending that people exposed to the virus quarantine for 14 days, "if the infected person and close contacts were wearing masks properly". In October 2020, she appeared at an indoor fundraiser for the Republican Party and a large rally in a hangar for President Trump; attendees did not wear masks or socially distance at the events. In February 2021, Reynolds rolled back mask requirements in indoor public places and restrictions on indoor dining. She did so without consulting with experts at the
Iowa Department of Public Health. The CDC had urged states not to loosen their COVID-19 public health measures. In May 2021, Reynolds signed into law a bill that prohibited businesses and local governments from requiring customers to have
proof of vaccination. She also signed into law a bill that prohibited school districts from requiring masks. On March 3, 2022, she signed into law a bill that bans
transgender girls and women from participating on designated female sports teams. In January 2023, Reynolds signed the Students First Act, which made private school vouchers available in Iowa for the first time. On March 22, 2023, she signed a law banning the prescription of
puberty blockers,
cross-sex hormones, and
gender-affirming surgery to minors, as well as a law prohibiting people from using school restrooms that do not align with their
sex at birth. In November 2023, Reynolds endorsed
Ron DeSantis for the
2024 Republican Party presidential primaries, saying she did not believe Trump could win the general election. She said she would endorse the Republican nominee and endorsed Trump in March 2024. Around this time, a survey found that Reynolds had the lowest approval rating of any U.S. governor. In 2024, Reynolds signed a bill allowing state law enforcement to arrest undocumented migrants if they had previously been deported from or denied admission to the United States. The bill also enables state courts to issue deportation orders for such individuals. On February 1, 2024, she introduced a bill defining "man" and "woman" based on
reproductive anatomy and requiring that official identification documents list sex at birth. On February 28, 2025, Reynolds signed Senate File 418, which eliminated
gender identity as a protected class from the Iowa Civil Rights Act. This made Iowa the first U.S. state to remove gender identity as a protected class from a civil rights law. On April 11, 2025, Reynolds announced she will not seek
reelection in 2026. ==Personal life==