Author: alaskaadmin

For Iowa Democrats, a decade-long drought may finally be coming to an end.

The economic turmoil of the past year-and-a-half has been felt acutely in Iowa, where the agriculture-heavy economy has been jolted by tariffs. Medicaid cuts in last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act are ransacking rural health facilities, Democrats say, and several clinics in the state have closed. And the Iran war has spiked prices for fertilizer and diesel — critical supplies for the farm state.

That’s all creating a dynamic that Democrats feel will propel voters their way in the midterms, giving them a shot at their first major statewide wins since the Obama era. And they’re confident that their candidates atop the ticket — a slate that was officially nominated in Tuesday’s primaries — will help carry Democrats in down ballot races.

“You go into these rural communities, the word that I hear the most is ‘betrayal,’” Josh Turek, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, told POLITICO in an interview late Tuesday night after winning his primary. “We’re leading the nation in farm foreclosures. Farm suicide rates skyrocketing. And so the Trump signs and Trump flags are coming down, because they say we’ve been betrayed.”

Even some Republicans are sounding the alarm.

“The reality is, if voters do not trust Republican elected officials and candidates with the future of the economy, they’re not going to vote for them this November,” said Drew Klein, an Iowa-based regional vice president of Americans for Prosperity. “That is what is going to decide the election in November.”

Democrats see economic issues providing an opening across rural America. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee recently commissioned polling they say shows economic dissatisfaction among rural voters, according to a memo shared first with POLITICO.

Both the Senate and governor’s seats are open in Iowa at the same time for the first time since 1968, and Democrats think they have a slate of nominees who could meet the moment.

“We’re excited about it, and this is probably the first time in a long, long time when I can say that,” said Patty Judge, a Democrat who served as Iowa agriculture secretary and was Democrats’ last lieutenant governor before her ticket lost in 2010.

Iowa Democrats and DCCC are seriously targeting three of the state’s four House seats as well — seats they swept in the last wave election, in 2018.

Turek, a Paralympic gold medalist, cruised to victory Tuesday in the primary for U.S. Senate, a victory for national Democrats who backed his campaign and will be eager to support him in November. He’ll run statewide with Rob Sand, the current state auditor and rising star within the party, who ran unopposed in the gubernatorial primary.

But winning in Iowa will still be difficult and require Democrats to overcome a party brand that has become toxic in most rural corners of the country. No Democrat in the state has been elected governor since 2006, to the U.S. Senate since 2008 and to the U.S House since 2020. The last time the state went blue at the presidential level was 2012.

Republicans admit the environment isn’t great — but argue that Democrats will still fall short given how far right the state has shifted in the Trump era.

“I think it’s a huge hill to climb for Dems,” said David Kochel, a longtime Republican strategist who has done extensive work in the state. “Yes, a lot of things are breaking towards them, but we’re talking about a state where Trump won by 13.”

“Democrats turned their backs on Iowa years ago, and their candidates prove they still haven’t learned a thing,” said National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Emily Tuttle. “Iowans want representatives who will fight for them, not lecture them or look down on them. That’s why Republicans are positioned to win across Iowa this November.”

Democrats’ optimism starts atop the ticket: Sand will take on Republican Zach Lahn, who won his primary with less than 40 percent of the vote over Trump-endorsed Rep. Randy Feenstra (R-Iowa).

Sand — an avid hunter who is the only statewide-elected Democratic official — has gained popularity in conservative Iowa for his independent, fiscally moderate streak. “They know him and trust him,” said Emma O’Brien, deputy campaign director for Sand. “He has bucked the Democratic Party and told them he disagrees where he has disagreed, and has given props to the other party when they do the right thing.”

Democrats are banking on Iowans being ready for a change after a decade of leadership from Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds. According to data from Morning Consult, she’s been the country’s most unpopular governor for two years running; 49 percent of Iowans disapproved of Reynolds’ performance as of February 2026.

“She’s had control of the legislature that whole time, and it is just inarguable that people’s lives are not better,” said Sue Dvorsky, a former Iowa Democratic Party chair. “Our health care is worse, our water is worse, the schools are in trouble. Every dimension that I think a family or a community uses to measure its health is down.”

A spokesperson for Reynolds did not respond to a request for comment.

In the Senate race, Turek will face off against GOP Rep. Ashley Hinson, a race that early polls show in a statistical deadlock. Democrats have their sights on Republican Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks in the 1st District and Zach Nunn in the 3rd District — and even think Hinson’s open seat in the 2nd District could be in play.

“Instead of standing up for Iowans, [Republicans] have put themselves, special interests, and their party bosses first,” said DCCC spokesperson Katie Smith. “Iowa families are desperate for change and after years of broken promises and failures, are ready to reject these creatures of the swamp.”

The string of strong candidates atop the ballot will help carry candidates in state legislature and local races, Democrats say.

“It feels different,” Sarah Trone Garriott, the Democratic challenger to Nunn who was elected to the state Senate in 2022 and 2024, told POLITICO on Tuesday, before winning her primary. “I have been one of the only [Democrats] to win in those years, and that felt pretty lonely. But this feels really good.”

Iowa Democrats have seen recent flashes of hope. In 2025, Democrats won four of six special elections for the state legislature, breaking Republicans’ supermajority in the state Senate.

Democrats draw a straight line between the changes to Medicaid in last year’s reconciliation bill and rural health clinic closures. In Iowa’s 1st District, a medical center ended its labor and delivery services, citing issues with government funding; in the 3rd District, clinics closed explicitly because of “expected Medicaid cuts.”

Farmers — a traditionally Republican leaning coalition — voted heavily for Trump. “[Trump] is not very good for farmers, but farmers have been pretty good to him,” said Tom Miller, a Democrat who served for 40 years as Iowa’s attorney general.

But Iowa farmers have been heavily impacted by Trump’s tariffs and trade wars — not to mention the spike in fuel and fertilizer costs.

Last fall, some farmers told former state Rep. Christina Bohannan — the Democratic nominee in the 1st District, where she will face Miller-Meeks for the third consecutive cycle — that they waited to buy fertilizer until spring because of high costs caused by tariffs. “Then we went to war with Iran, and the fertilizer prices spiked even more,” Bohannan said. “So our farmers are really struggling.”

Aaron Heley Lehman, president of the Iowa Farmers Union and a fifth-generation farmer, warned that rural voters should not be automatically counted on by any party. “People are feeling a lot of pain right now and not seeing a lot of action to match rhetoric,” Lehman said. “The degree of hurt that Iowa farmers are feeling is pretty wide.”

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Rep. Randy Feenstra lost the GOP primary for Iowa governor on Tuesday, a shocking upset after he earned President Donald Trump’s last-minute endorsement.

Feenstra, who was narrowly defeated by rival Zach Lahn, conceded and called to congratulate him before results were official.

The three-term representative outspent Lahn, a businessperson and former GOP operative, by nearly $1 million and leaned heavily into his MAGA credentials during the primary.

The loss is a blow for Trump, who has seen most of his chosen candidates this cycle sail to victory or advance to runoff elections — until now. He backed Feenstra just four days before the primary, a last-ditch attempt to bolster his loyal GOP ally in a race that became increasingly competitive in the final stretch. Feenstra had asked for Trump’s endorsement earlier this year and began calling himself a “Trump conservative” in ads even before receiving the president’s backing.

The race kicked off when Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds decided against running for reelection, with Feenstra, Lahn and three other candidates competing for the GOP nomination. Feenstra, who boasts a long record in the state and in Congress, was widely viewed as the front-runner, though the latest primary polling revealed he was on shaky standing.

Lahn has never held public office, but spent years working in Republican politics and running campaigns in Montana and Colorado. In this race, he positioned himself as a political outsider. “I’m my own biggest donor and I cannot be bought,” he said in one face-to-camera ad. “I’m running because career politicians, special interests and corporate giants have betrayed Iowans.”

Lahn is a native Iowan but spent many years out of the state, most recently opening a private school in Wichita, and reportedly voted in Kansas from 2018 through 2022.

Lahn will face off with Democrat Rob Sand in November in the marquee race, with Iowa Democrats eager to win the governor’s mansion for the first time since 2006. Sand, the Iowa state auditor, is the lone Iowa Democrat to hold statewide office.

Andrew Howard contributed to this report.

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Iowa state Rep. Josh Turek won his Senate primary Tuesday, a victory for national Democrats who helped boost him as they seek to flip the critical seat.

He will face Rep. Ashley Hinson, the GOP nominee, to compete in what has become one of the nation’s most closely watched Senate races, as both parties battle for control of the upper chamber.

Turek, a wheelchair basketball player who was on teams that won two Paralympic gold medals, defeated state Sen. Zach Wahls in a chaotic primary election that turned into a proxy war between the Democratic Party’s leaders and its anti-establishment wing. Wahls frequently accused Turek of being beholden to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer — who didn’t formally endorse in the race but whose leadership PAC maxed out to Turek’s campaign — and outside groups like VoteVets, which spent more than $10 million on advertising for Turek. That figure is more than three times the combined spending from Turek’s and Wahls’ campaigns.

In the end, that money — in cohort with Turek’s “prairie populism” pitch focused on building up the working class — helped him prevail.

Turek also boasted significant backing from Democrats in the state, including former Sen. Tom Harkin, the last Democrat to represent Iowa in the U.S. Senate. He enters the general election in a deadlock with Hinson, with preprimary polling showing the two in a statistical tie.

Democrats have not elected a senator to Washington since 2008, when Harkin was elected to his final term. But they view this cycle as a golden opportunity, thanks to a sagging economy and growing frustration with the Trump administration’s tariffs, which spiraled Iowa’s agriculture sector into chaos.

And Turek, who was elected to the Iowa House of Representatives in 2022, has been through tough races before: In that first election, he defeated a Republican opponent by just six votes.

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