Stephanie Steiner will host an Election Night Watch Party on Tuesday, June 2, at Okoboji Brewing Company in Spirit Lake as results come in from Iowa’s three-way Democratic primary in the 4th Congressional District. Doors open at 7:30 p.m., and the campaign says the evening will include food, drinks and live music from local musician Sonya Johnsen.

The gathering gives Steiner a public place to wait for the vote that will decide who advances to the November ballot in the district now tied to Randy Feenstra. Steiner, of Sutherland, has framed the race as a test of whether voters want someone focused on affordability, access to healthcare, water quality and Iowa’s rising cancer rates.

She said primary elections are where voters make one of the most important decisions in democracy, because they choose who they want on the November ballot and who they believe is best prepared to represent Iowa’s 4th Congressional District. At least 68,000 Iowans had already cast primary ballots early before Tuesday, according to the Iowa Secretary of State’s office.

The party system in Iowa also shapes who can weigh in. The state uses a closed primary system, which means voters must be registered with a political party to take part in that party’s contest. They can update party registration at their polling place on Election Day or ahead of time through their county auditor’s office or the state’s online voter registration system.

That structure matters for Steiner, who is campaigning in a contested party primary even as she says she is not a political insider. She describes herself as a wife, mother of seven, grandmother, former women’s health nurse and small livestock producer living in rural Iowa, and says that experience, not party machinery, is what she is bringing to the race. She has also said she has supporters who are Democrats, Republicans, Independents and others, adding that no matter a voter’s political background, their voice matters.

Her campaign event is the last public marker before ballots are counted and the three-way Democratic race is settled. The results will show whether Steiner’s appeal to nontraditional political coalitions can carry her through a closed-primary electorate that has already turned out in large numbers, or whether the district’s November ballot will be shaped by someone else.