Barbara Rodriguez is the state politics and voting reporter for The 19th. She most recently worked at the Des Moines Register, where she covered health care, politics and state government. Before that, Barbara was the Iowa statehouse reporter for The Associated Press, where she worked for a decade.

Mariel Padilla is a general assignment reporter for The 19th. Previously she covered breaking news at The New York Times where she contributed to COVID-19 coverage that won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize, compiled data at the Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism and contributed to a 2018 Pulitzer Prize-winning project at The Cincinnati Enquirer.