Shawn Harmsen secured the District B seat in the Iowa City City Council election on Tuesday. 

Harmsen won with 5,293 votes and ran against newcomer Amy Hospodarsky for the seat, who received 4,482, according to unofficial results. 

Harmsen has sat on the council for almost three years now. He was sworn in for his first term in January 2022. Before running, Harmsen helped run several city council campaigns, including Mayor Pro Tem Mazhir Salih and sitting Councilor Megan Alter.

Prior to the election, Harmsen spoke about several issues he hoped to address if reelected to the council, including affordable housing, public transportation, and racial equity and justice. 

During his previous time on council, Harmsen worked to help make decisions on how best to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, work on the fare-free bus service, and put money toward a free medical clinic that sits in District B. 

Alter, Harmsen, and Iowa City Mayor Bruce Teague hosted a joint election watch party at Big Grove in Iowa City with roughly 100 attendees. The party was consistently busy throughout the night, and the crowd of family and friends remained vocal in their support for the candidates. 

Harmsen’s mother, Candi Evans, was in attendance at the watch party in support of her son and the other two candidates, praising them for their experience and prior decision making. 

“I’ve seen the work that they do in Iowa City,” she said. “These three have had our back.” 

Before the results came in, Harmsen said he “left it all on the mat” and that it was to the voters now to decide what the council would look like for the next four years. Harmsen also commended all the candidates for being willing to run and put themselves on the ballot. 

The race for the District B seat was close throughout the night. Harmsen took the seat with fewer than 1,000 votes, securing his second term. 

Harmsen said it was good to win, but he was most excited to have the trust of the voters.  

“They’ve had a chance to see what I could do,” Harmsen said. “I’ve been doing it for almost four years now, and that they are going to give me a shot to do another four years, it means a great deal.” 

Harmsen said he is excited to continue working on the issues that are important to him, including affordable housing and zoning. 

“I was really excited about moving forward with a couple of different things, one of them being continuing to work for the city to become a more aggressive developer of affordable housing,” Harmsen said. “The other thing is continuing to work on our zoning and how we plan our growth in neighborhoods.”

He said leading up to the election, during his time door knocking, he heard constituents were facing an “emotional storm,” but also said people were not discouraged, which gave him hope. 

“There’s a lot of fear, but there’s also a lot of determination,” he said. “If you just go online and live in the social media world, it would be easy to lose hope. But when you talk to real people, it’s not going to be a cake walk, but it gives me hope anyway.” 

Harmsen also spoke about his opponent, Amy Hospodarsky, thanking her for running and saying this election, candidates ran “cleaner” campaigns compared to years past. 

“It takes a lot to put yourself out there, and all the work that goes into it, there’s all the stress of how they’re going to turn out,” he said, “So it takes a lot of courage, and I think that it’s important that we have people willing to step up.” 

Hospodarky did not respond to The Daily Iowan’s request for comment after the polls closed. 

Harmsen will be sworn into his second term in January 2026, along with Teague and Alter, who both won at-large seats on Nov. 4.