Iowa’s Democratic Nominee for Senate Is A Baller
Like, an actual two-time Paralympics gold medal sportsballer. And a hell of a pol, too.
The New Republic last week asked the provocative question “Is Iowa still a swing state?” To which we raised an eyebrow and wondered what the hell the piece was talking about, because Iowa hasn’t elected a Democratic governor since 2006 and hasn’t elected a Democratic US senator since Tom Harkin won his fifth and final term in 2008. (OK, sure, Iowa went to Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, too, but what didn’t?) The Ethanol State has been solidly red for a couple decades, electing Trumpy Republicans like Gov. Kim Reynolds, Sen. Joni Ernst, and not-fully-Trumpy fossilized Stegosaurus poop Sen. Chuck Grassley.
That dogshit lede aside, though, the real question is whether Iowa voters, especially independents, are sick enough of what Donald Trump has done to the state’s economy with his tariffs and his war of choice in Iran that Democrats might once more have a chance at winning statewide again.
That actually looks quite possible, with multiple recent polls in the race for governor showing Democratic state auditor Rob Sand leading over Republican business guy Zach Lahn. (Lahn, you’ll recall, won narrowly over Rep. Randy Feenstra, who got Trump’s endorsement in the R primary, but only at the last minute.)
And in Iowa’s race for Senate, most polls show an extremely close contest between Democratic state Rep. Josh Turek and Trump-or-die Republican US Rep. Ashley Hinson; virtually all the polls have them pretty much tied, with results well inside the polls’ margins of error.
Turek is a former Paralympian and professional wheelchair basketball player running on a (refreshingly detailed!) platform he calls “prairie populism” and highlighting the issue of affordability.
Hinson is a former local TV news anchor running on a platform of complete sycophancy to Trump, and made headlines last summer when she was booed at a town hall every time she mentioned Trump, the economy, and her vote for the evil Big Bullshit Bill for Billionaires.
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In July, Barack Obama — who the New York Times notes (guest link) is “the only Democrat to win Iowa in a presidential election in the last quarter-century” — made this fun endorsement video with Turek, who won two Paralympics gold medals as a member of Team USA. The two didn’t say who won their game of “IOWA” (instead of “HORSE” you know), but Obama says in the ad that he got “whooped.”
Remember when politics could make us grin? And hell, Obama didn’t even catch any flak for wearing a tan warm-up jacket. Maybe somebody will make an issue of the fact that Turek went to Chicago to record the ad in a gym there instead of Obama going to Iowa?
Obama and Turek trade baskets, policy points, and basketball nostalgia (Jordan remains the greatest) and Turek makes a point of telling Obama that folks in Iowa “are saying that they’re feeling that hope, that optimism, for the first time in a long time.” For good measure, Turek adds that “Everywhere we go — urban areas, rural areas — people are ready for change.” (These are good words still.)
The Times notes that both left-handed Democrats made “a series of swishes,” but that Obama badly missed “a midrange bank shot from the wing. (‘The bank was closed,’ Mr. Obama says.)” That’s political reporter Tim Balk showing off that he too knows the language of sportsball. But yeah, we grinned when he pointed out in the final paragraph that the two ballers have met before, when Obama welcomed the US Paralympics men’s basketball team to the White House after they gold in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
Oh, yes, and Billy Fuerst, a spokesperson for Hinson, dismissed the former president’s endorsement in just six words, saying, “Another liberal endorses Josh Turek — shocking.” He’s no Ernest Hemingway, but then, neither was Hemingway.
Turek, well aware that he’s campaigning in a very red state, has focused his campaign on the economic effects Trump’s war and tariffs have had on Iowa farmers. At a campaign appearance Friday at the Iowa state fair, Turek took a mild shot at Senate Democratic leaders for refusing to pass the big farm bill unless Republicans agree to delay for two years one of the Big Buggering Bill’s punitive measures against states in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). He noted that a new farm bill is “three years overdue,” and even with its flaws, the current bill would be better than continued delays.
That said, he also argues that the Big Ugly Bill’s cuts to SNAP and Medicaid have to be repealed, because rural communities rely on thriving grocery stores and are seeing hospital and health clinic closures.
Turek is threading a needle in his campaign between emphasizing his successes at building bipartisan support in the Legislature for issues like disability rights and help for people who’ve gotten cancer from water contaminated by agricultural runoff, and his commitment to progressive goals like raising the minimum wage, setting term limits for Supreme Court justices, making Roe v. Wade the law, and passing an amendment to revoke Citizens United.
Meanwhile, his opponent Rep. Hinson has voted to support Trump’s tariffs and to continue the Iran war, although she acknowledged back in June that she hoped the war would be wrapped up “by the next couple of weeks. If it drags on beyond that, it’s a political liability for us too, because we’ve lost Iowa soldiers. I’ve been to four funerals since December, it’s awful.”
It’s been more than a couple of weeks. Turek has made stopping the war a top priority, and keeps pointing out that high oil and fertilizer prices will only keep hurting Iowans. He may not convince many Trumpers to join him, but as Charlie Cook, the founder of the Cook Political Report, noted in July, that may not be as important as engaging independent voters, who are so far leaning his way. As for the MAGA faithful, Cook said, “if a Republican is disaffected this year, they’re a heck of a lot more likely to not show up or to skip over various offices on the ballot than they are to vote for a Democrat.” Cook said he thinks Rob Sand will win the governor’s race, but gave Turek only a one-in-four chance of winning the Senate election. Even so, the Cook Political Report shifted its prediction for Iowa from “likely Republican” to “lean Republican.”
If you’d like to shift the momentum a bit for another Midwestern Democrat in a (so far) red state, you can send Turek some money right here. And don’t forget Adam Hamilton in Kansas!
OPEN THREAD.
[New Republic/ Roll Call / The Hill / Iowa Capital Dispatch / KCCI / NYT (gift link) / NBC News / Josh Turek for Iowa /
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This morning was the monthly delivery of several pallets of food from a regional food bank/warehouse to the small pantry operated by the local immigration services center. As usual, a gang of volunteers descended on the place to unpack and put away the food.
As we worked, some of them were talking about how regional food banks, like the one that supplies the center, are getting their government funding cut. And of course this is happening while people are getting their SNAP benefits slashed or eradicated as well, increasing demand. Bastards.
They also said that because of the funding cuts, the banks are depending even more on donated food from processors and retailers, always an important source in the best of times. I noticed, or thought I did, that there seemed to be more items that looked like one-offs – things like energy bars in odd flavors like chocolate-mango or whatever. So, great –we’re giving the hungry the food we don’t want, on the grounds that it’s better than nothing. Which I guess it is.
It was the usual gang of graybeards doing the work, with one exception: Stefanie, a high-school senior who was volunteering here for the first time. Since the rest of us are all grandparent age, we fussed over her a bit, or at least paid her some extra attention. She saw my Stanford jacket, and that got us talking about colleges. She’s applying to Georgetown.
Stefanie is Hispanic and bilingual; she chatted easily with the center staff in Spanish as we waited for the grocery truck. As we cut open boxes and stacked cans, the subject of ICE raids came up. Stefanie mentioned, quite casually, that her father, a landscaper, is now nervous about working. Presumably his immigration status is OK (of course I wasn’t crass enough to ask), but apparently he’s seen ICE agents hanging around landscaping jobs and waiting to nab people when the job was done.
I was a little startled by how matter-of-factly Stefanie related this – like it was a natural thing. She also mentioned that one of her other extracurricular activities is serving as a police cadet.
People are adapting to Trump’s America. And that might be the scariest thing about it.