Being from Iowa originally and seeing the choices in elections made by Iowa during the last decade or so, my guess
is that she has essentially zero chance of being elected and will likely be absolutely crushed in the election - especially in Western Iowa and Southern Iowa.
On Balletopedia, she seems to have chosen not to fill out "Ballotpedia's 2022 Candidate Connection" survey, so it is difficult to see what her current policy positions are - other than reading her website's brief outline of the issues. Her website, though, is pretty thin on actual substance - i.e., specific policies. She might be a good candidate, but her Issues section comes across as so much boilerplate. Beyond that, she might want to rethink her "Pandemic Pineapple" video: it does not get to the message quickly and runs the risk of being ridiculed.
(See also
https://ballotpedia.org/Deidre_DeJear and
https://www.dejearforiowa.com/)
So far, there seem to be no other people vying for the nomination and the only other former contenders dropped out for some reason:
The main problem that I see with her campaign is that she has not identified a specific (small) set of issues which
rural Iowans will care about. Sure, she has a D by her name, but to win in Iowa, she will need to appeal to the rural independents. That will be hard enough given Iowa's demographics. Her only hope seems to be to actually identify specific issues that will help farmers and rural communities and encourage them to buy into her vision of leadership.
Also, after looking at her Twitter posts, it will not be a politically smart idea to champion trans rights in athletics. That will not sell in rural Iowa, at all. Even pushing voting rights (though critically important) will not likely work: keep in mind, that rural areas have generally no problem voting (that means that outside of the few idealists out there, no one will really connect with that issue).
My apologies if this assessment is too honest.
Maybe there is still time to reshape her campaign's approach to getting elected. All I can say is good luck.
P.S. Regarding your assessment of the number of "racists" in Iowa, you have every right to call people what you wish to call them, but there seems to be a trend to call one's opponents racists or haters more often than not. That might be taken as a gross oversimplification. Anyway, the implication of your remark seems to be that if DeJear were to lose in a gubernatorial election, at most a majority of voting Iowans would be "racists". That's a pretty broad remark.
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