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Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand trades dress with Des Moines drag queen before show

Robin Opsahl
The Des Moines Register

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand made sure she was dressed to impress when she visited Blazing Saddles, a gay bar in Des Moines, before a drag show that night.

She wasn't the only one who thought her dress looked great — drag queen Vana, who was performing a show at the bar later that night, also gave it a whirl.

"I felt underdressed, so I brought a dress I picked up yesterday — turns out it fit me, but it fit Vana even better!" Gillibrand tweeted Saturday.

The Democrat from New York had been campaigning around Iowa all day before stopping into Blazing Saddles. Gillibrand held events in Harlan, Denison, Carroll and Ames earlier that day.

This won't be Gillibrand's last interaction with the drag community on the campaign trail. On May 2, she's meeting with Marti Gould Cummings, a popular drag queen known from the TV series "Shade: Queens of NYC."

"For the first time in the history of the United States a presidential candidate is sitting down one-on-one with a drag queen to discuss the issues," Cummings tweeted.

Saturday was a busy day for the 2020 presidential candidate. She also arm-wrestled 20-year-old Olivia Habinck in Ames, promising to write a $500 check to the College and Young Democrats of Iowa if the young Democrat won.

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Robin Opsahl covers political trends for the Register. They can be reached by email at ropsahl@registermedia.com or by phone at 515-284-8051.