Nielsen was born in Keokuk,Iowa,in 1978. Due to her father's job in the auto industry,the family moved to Tennessee for a brief time before relocating back to the Iowan community of Hills outside of Iowa City,where both of her parents ended up working for local banks. She attended Iowa City West High School,graduating in 1995. After two years at Kirkwood Community College,she and her husband left Iowa and began to move around the country for his job at Kimberly Clark.[2]
Now a stay-at-home mother of three children,she and her family made it back to Iowa,settling down in North Liberty. There,she began serving on the PTO of her children's school and worked on a revenue purpose campaign with the Iowa City School District.[citation needed] Nielsen also sat on the board of directors for the North Liberty Community Pantry and served as member of the Iowa City Community School District's Equity Advisory Committee.[3]
This experience motivated her to apply for a city council seat that had opened up upon the passing of North Liberty's mayor. Although she wasn't selected,she decided to run for mayor the following year. Despite her relative inexperience and her opponent's stellar record of 15 years public service,Nielsen won with 55% of the vote.[3]
In 2015,when Sally Stutsman announced that she would not seek reelection,House leadership reached out to Nielsen,who initially declined. However,after reconsideration,she ultimately agreed and decided to launch a campaign around school funding.[2] She ran against former Tiffin Mayor,Royce Phillips.[4]
When he was mayor of Newark, Cory was able to bring people together to accomplish things ... As a former mayor myself, I know the types of tough decisions that you must make when you are the city's Chief Executive Officer, and how that prepares you to tackle big things in the future ...[6]
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