Is Iowa the Senate Race No One Saw Coming?

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Something might be happening in Iowa.

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Despite its reputation as a solidly Republican state, Iowa is increasingly coming up in conversations of Senate races to watch this year. And that glimmer of optimism is playing out in the fight for the Democratic nomination, which saw a significant shift Monday evening, with one of three contenders announcing he was stepping aside and endorsing state Rep. Josh Turek, a paralympian gold medalist and state lawmaker.

“We’re seeing the field consolidate around the most electable candidate because I fundamentally believe that Iowa is in play far more than what people on the coast realize,” Turek tells TIME. “I think we are going to be the center of the political universe here in 2026. There’s no other state where you’re looking at being able to flip three of the four congressional seats, flip the Senate seat, and flip this Governor’s race.”

Turek is pointing to how not only Senator Joni Ernst but Gov. Kim Reynolds chose not to run for another term, marking the first time since 1968 both gigs are open on the same ballot in Iowa. For many observers, both GOP incumbents opting out of the midterms is a sign of the party’s broader troubles with an electorate weary of President Donald Trump’s version of the GOP. 

Yet Turek hasn’t yet won the June 2 primary, which is shaping up to offer two competing versions of what it takes to win as a Democrat this year. Zach Wahls, a fellow state lawmaker representing deep-blue Johnson County, is still in the race and he’s got a national brand thanks to a 2011 viral moment of him testifying in the state House against a proposed ban on same-sex marriages like his mothers’. These days, he’s in the state Senate and has racked up such a progressive record that his GOP critics in Washington have started calling him the Mamdani of Iowa.

Then there’s Turek, a two-time Paralympic medalist in basketball who was born with spina bifida and uses a wheelchair, who is campaigning with a framework of “Prairie populism,” not dissimilar to the rhetoric of former Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin. In fact, Turek often cites Harkin and his work on the Americans With Disabilities Act as someone who “made sure that the doors were open for kids like me.”

If you had last year considered a map for Democrats to retake the majority this year, the road did not exactly lend itself to an Iowa detour. Ernst seemed to have the pulse of her constituents as second nature. Yet with two dynamic major Democratic candidates in play now—rather than a jumbled field that included former Knoxville Chamber of Commerce Director Nathan Sage, who is now backing Turek—Iowa may well be the Senate race no one saw coming. 

When the year started, races in Georgia, Michigan, and Ohio were seen as the real battlegrounds—not Iowa, which last elected a new Democratic Senator, Harkin, in 1984. Yet Democrats in recent weeks have summoned surprising credibility to their claims of having a shot at winning back the Senate majority. Marquee recruits in Ohio and North Carolina all but cleared the field, New Hampshire and Illinois seem settled, and the fact Democrats are looking with greedy ambition at Alaska shows how underwater the Republican brand is with voters. (Democratic primaries in Minnesota, Michigan, Maine, and Texas remain open questions, though.)

Read more: How Texas Ended Up With the Wildest Senate Race in the Country

But when no one on the East Coast was watching, things got wobbly even in the Heartland for Republicans. Reynolds, who is not going for a third term, is among the least popular Governors in the nation. Similarly, Ernst decided against a third term after remarking “Well, we are all going to die” while defending the prospect of Iowans losing health insurance coverage under Trump’s massive domestic policy bill. (Both are the first women to win those roles.)

Need proof that the Trump-led GOP brand is not invincible in Iowa? Iowa was the first state the President hit this year on a tour to reboot his pitch on the economy, one his advisers had been urging to counter the settling narrative that things were not recovering as promised.

Democrats in Iowa have been busy casting Trump’s second term as a basket of failed promises on everything from affordability and health care to exports and tariffs. It has worked; he is now underwater by 2 points in Iowa, according to recent Morning Consult polling. (Trump is similarly underwater in other must-win Senate states for Republicans, including Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, Minnesota, Maine, and New Hampshire while being just barely above water in Ohio.)

The fight among Democrats in the Iowa Senate race had initially been a five-way free-for all. But then Jackie Norris, a former chief of staff to Michelle Obama, and state Rep. J. D. Scholten both ended their runs, with Scholten endorsing Turek as he exited the race. Sage followed suit on Monday.

“I am supporting Josh because he comes from the same kind of working class family I do, and it’s time we have more folks like us in Washington,” Sage said in an announcement.

Wahls did not respond to a message sent over this holiday weekend.

National Republicans have been keeping an eye on Iowa, even if it’s not their top worry. In conversations with party strategists last week, they all seemed confident that Rep. Ashley Hinson, a three-term House member and former TV news anchor in Cedar Rapids, was running a campaign the right way. Campaign ads for her are already on the air courtesy of the GOP’s main campaign arm for Senate races, helping her maintain her formidable fundraising advantage. (She has raised more than Turek and Wahls combined between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31.)

Still, it’s tough to shake numbers: Ernst won her re-election bid by 7 points last time, while Trump carried the state by 8. If Trump is already soured in some Iowa voters’ minds, it’s going to be tougher for Republicans to hold the seat, especially if Hinson struggles to make herself known statewide. 

Which is again why it’s interesting to watch Democrats out there wrestling with a nomination. Wahls is a popular figure with a national brand, which explains why he edged out Turek in fundraising so far and has about twice as much cash in the bank. No one expects a Wahls exit before the June primary and he has hoovered up endorsements from the likes of Howard Dean, Jason Kander, and Dave Loebsack—names that might not mean much these days for most pols but still pack a punch in Iowa.

Turek is not being subtle in his message that those credentials may matter less to voters who want to see the state elect a Democratic Senator for the first time in almost two decades. After all, as Turek points out in just about every campaign speech and interview, Iowa voted three times for Trump but twice went for Barack Obama.

“Because we are in such a bad place right now here in Iowa, there is significantly more energy and desire for change than even in Trump’s first midterm,” Turek says.

The dour environment alone won’t win Turek or Wahls the Senate seat. But it could be the biggest factor if Trump continues to serve as an anchor for the GOP brand, one that Hinson may find herself dragged down by.

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