Like many Iowa Republican politicos, Zach Nunn cut his teeth as a staffer to longtime Sen. Charles E. Grassley.

Nunn joined the senator’s office as a fresh college graduate in 2002. He quickly learned Grassley’s quirks, including his famed jogging habit , which sometimes leaves reporters in his dust.

“I was just watching the reporters be like, ‘Do we chase a senior senator down the hallway?’” Nunn recalled.

Another lesson, he said, came from watching his boss, then chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, work closely with Democratic counterpart Max Baucus, so much so that the former Montana senator took the unusual step of endorsing Grassley in his 2022 campaign.

“If we’re ever not in the majority, I want to make sure we have that long-term relationship,” Nunn said of reaching acro

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