Which Democrat Can Win Iowa’s Senate Seat?

The other, Zach Wahls, 34, comes from “The People’s Republic of Johnson County,” as former Des Moines Register columnist David Yepsen called it decades ago. He represents District 43 in the Iowa Senate, which includes the very blue Johnson County, home of the University of Iowa. He’s the son of two moms, one of whom is a physician. He has been a politician nearly all of his young life.

Farmers make up less than 3% of Iowa’s population, yet agriculture—especially the corporate kind—enjoys outsized influence here. While the ag industry publishes idyllic images of farmers in front of big equipment, these multinational corporations in fact soak farmers for the cost of herbicides, pesticides, genetically modified seeds, veterinarian fees, interest payments and more.

Big Ag has turned farmers into pass-through entities for government bail outs, including the Trump administration’s latest $12 billion paid to soften the blow of his tariff policy. As the Environmental Working Group has shown, these payments fund a vicious cycle, flowing primarily to the largest farms to help them purchase the machinery, seeds and chemicals that in turn boost the sales and earnings of corporate giants like John Deere and Tyson. They’ve offloaded all the risk onto farmers while the industry makes hay on Wall Street.

The agriculture monopolists will not let their cash cow go quietly into that good night.

Maybe that’s why we don’t see a dramatic difference in what Turek or Wahls offers when it comes to changing an industry that’s killing us. Multiple scientists across many disciplines have determined that Iowa’s ag industry is a major contributor to its dubious distinction of first in the nation in rising cancer rates and second in actual cancer rates.

What do we get from both Turek and Wahls on the ag front? They’ll fight for cleaner water, pass the long overdue farm bill and break up corporate monopolies (this last one is a major contribution from the fast-growing Iowa Farmers Union, which has harped on the issue for decades).

In Iowa, these are no longer considered visionary solutions. Breaking up the corn/soybean monopoly is. Just ask Iowa’s Secretary of Ag and Land Stewardship candidate Chris Jones (D), a researcher steeped in Iowa’s water pollution debate. He has no compunction about promoting an agricultural economy centered around table food, oats and pastured livestock. In fact, he says Iowa will never improve its water quality while 70% of its farmland grows two crops. It’s a refreshing change, to say the least.

In any case, either Wahls or Turek will end up running against Republican Ashley Hinson for the seat vacated by Republican Sen. Joni “We’re all going to die” Ernst. Since 2021, Hinson has been serving as Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District congresswoman and Trump-loyalist but jumped into the Senate race when Ernst dropped out in September 2025.

Primary elections are set for June 2. Either man would be exponentially better for working people, family farmers, the environment, small businesses and the poor than Ashley Hinson has ever been.

But if either is to win a Senate seat as a Democrat in Iowa, he has to inspire lapsed Democrats to get out and vote. He also has to show independent voters he’s worth trusting. He has to win the hearts more than the minds of the majority of Iowa voters.

Iowa is the kind of longshot win Democrats need for a path back to a majority in the Senate. The odds are slim. Democrats would need to hold two vulnerable seats in Georgia and Michigan and flip four other seats. Two of the most likely seats to flip are in Maine and North Carolina. In addition, Democrats would need two big upsets in states like Iowa, Ohio, Alaska or Texas. Trump’s sinking 38% approval rating is no guarantee for Democratic success, either. Only 35% of voters view the party favorably.

Wahls seems to be responding to those numbers by distancing himself from the party that raised him. He’s hammering Turek on the latter’s support from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), which is controlled by Schumer and his New York colleague Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.

In the May 5 candidate debate, Turek hit back, calling out both Wahls’s history as the executive director of The Next 50, a “dark money PAC,” and his acceptance of $250,000 in campaign contributions when he was Senate minority leader in 2023 from questionable cryptocurrency-related funds. Wahls was later unanimously voted out of that position by his Democratic peers.

And it’s not as though Wahls didn’t travel to D.C. to display his wares as well. He just didn’t win the DSCC beauty contest. Instead, Wahls is now playing the anti-Schumer, anti-establishment underdog. Todd Dorman, a columnist for the The Gazette in Cedar Rapids, describes Schumer as a politician who is “as popular with Iowa progressives as fossil fuel.”

Wahls (the son of two moms) is now raising money hand over fist from LGBTQ supporters and fed-up-with-Schumers across the country. Perhaps to counter the perceived benefit of Schumer’s endorsement, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has become a standard beared of Wahls’ “progressive” flag. Appearing with him at a Mother’s Day campaign rally in Des Moines, she said, “Zach is in this fight because he genuinely believes we can make this a country that works better for working people, and that we can do that together.”

With just one billionaire among a paltry 3.2 million people, Iowa can’t generate the kind of money a U.S. Senate candidate needs these days and both parties know it. Still, I was surprised when Wahls once bragged to me that 35% of his fundraising came from Iowans. He said that was the best of any Senate candidate at the time (before Nathan Sage dropped out). Texas wag Molly Ivins, once said, “You got to dance with them what brung you.” If that’s true, neither of these guys will be answering to Iowans anyway.

Meanwhile, in addition to an initial Schumer-blessed release of Democratic funds from around the nation, Vote Vets has been running ads to support Turek due to his dad’s exposure to Agent Orange, which is possibly linked to Turek’s spina bifida. Despite Schumer’s stink on the group, it’s not a bad thing to have veterans speaking out for a Democrat and, by law, Turek has no control over what they do.

While both candidates pitch themselves as populists, it’s Wahls who took Big Ag money when he had the chance. According to Transparency USA, in his 2022 campaign for state senate, Wahls accepted an estimated $16,000 ranging from $3,000 to $500 donations from the likes of John Deere, the Iowa Corngrowers Association, Corteva, Syngenta, Bayer, the Agribusiness Association of Iowa and others. Impressive for a senator from a university town.

“As the (former) Senate minority leader, I bore the responsibility of fundraising to support our Democratic senate candidates running in competitive races all across Iowa,” Wahls explained in response to the 2023 Substack exposé by Chris Jones (yes, the same one mentioned above) on his acceptance of such funds.

Someone with more integrity might have said, “But when it comes to Big Ag, I draw the line. I sent the money back.”

As a state representative who hasn’t held party leadership office, Turek hasn’t faced the same ethical dilemma. Still, his donations look more like he’s been busking on a street corner in downtown Council Bluffs, with one exception—major support from the Iowa Democratic Party. That may well include Big Ag funds as part of the House Minority Leader’s fundraising, but having been siphoned through the IDP, we’ll never know, and neither will Turek.

No street corner busking for Wahls. He flew first class and stayed in 5-star hotels as he raised money around the country for Iowa Senate Democrats. An April 1 Washington Examiner article exposed how Wahls spent more on travel and accommodations in less than 3 years than the last leader spent in 20, including high-priced stays at the Hotel Fort Des Moines in his home state.

Someone with more integrity might have crashed at the Super 8.

But Wahls knows how to raise money and clearly believes the ends justify the means. He’s also a known quantity in the more population-dense region of eastern Iowa. Unions are pouring funds and endorsements into his camnpaign. Many Iowa City residents love him as the local boy and a reliable liberal. LGBTQ people love him because he’s “gay adjacent” and for his 2011 viral video where, at the age of 19, he stood before the Iowa House Judiciary Committee to defend the right of his two mothers to marry. He’s the picture-perfect Iowa candidate—tall, white, handsome, with a wife and a baby, and experience in the state house.

Maybe Wahls can get elected to one of the most powerful seats in America, but there’s a reason D.C. turned him down. He’d like to say he’s not establishment enough. I’d like to believe it, but I don’t.

Truth is he’s never run against a viable Republican candidate, and his back story is thin. These are two truths a U.S. Senate candidate cannot afford to dismiss and the Republicans know it. Hinson’s campaign is already setting Wahls up as both her likely opponent and a far-left extremist. As Robert Leonard has reported in his Substack “Deep Midwest: Politics and Culture,” one GOP operative told him off the record, “If you only read the Hinson campaign press releases, you wouldn’t know Josh Turek was even a candidate in this race.”

Challenged to mobilize progressives for the primary and independent  Iowa swing voters for the general election, Wahls ends up looking like he’s talking out of both sides of his mouth. While progressive standard-bearer Elizabeth Warren stumps for him during the primary, where only diehard Dems turn out to vote, Wahls has been practicing his more moderate framing for the post-primary statewide campaign. He told the Iowa Capital Dispatch in March: “I believe that the best ideas are the ones that work best for our state, and I really do not care which party they come from,”

Then there’s Josh Turek, who has consistently called himself a prairie populist. This is a man who knows struggle in his bones by the very nature of his birth. By the age of 12, he had undergone 21 Medicaid-funded surgeries. Medicaid clients won’t feel the worst pain from the One Big Beautiful Bill until months after Election Day, making it tougher to mobilize them. Still, Turek can connect with them like no other candidate can. His gold medal wheelchair Olympic experience tells us he knows how to work with a team and succeed under pressure. And there are few scenes that inspire the word “grit” more than the video of him pulling himself and his chair up the steps to knock on a voter’s door.

In August 2025, J.D. Scholten, a former state legislator and Democratic Iowa hero who is credited with ending Steve King’s reign in Northwest Iowa, immediately endorsed Turek after he withdrew from his candidacy for the U.S. Senate race. Turek was also endorsed by Nathan Sage when Sage dropped out in February. Sagespoke with both Turek and Wahls before deciding whom to endorse. A Marine and Army veteran who never learned how to mince words, Sage called Wahls “artificial” and described his conversation with him as  “transactional.” Other progressive state legislators who’ve worked with Turek speak passionately about his integrity and work ethic.

Retired populist U.S. Senator Tom Harkin (D), who is sparing with official endorsements, came out for Josh on May 7, saying: “Josh Turek has the Iowa values, the Iowa work ethic, the Iowa ‘can do’ spirit, and has won election and re-election to the Iowa House of Representatives in a very challenging area for Democrats.” A candidate can rack up endorsements from organizations ’til the cows come home, and as a former union organizer, I take union endorsements seriously. They come with real money and an army of doorknockers. But when leaders you respect step up and say, “This guy’s the real deal,” it means something substantially more.

Being a candidate is about more than how you grew up. It’s certainly about more than the platitudes consultants tell you to spew. It’s what you stand for now, how your life choices reflect those values, whether you are a compassionate listener and most importantly, whether voters can trust you to maintain your beliefs when you’re battered by corporate lobbyists and the powerful inertia of the status quo.

Iowans respect authenticity, hard work and integrity. We’ll see if those values come through in the June primary results.

Suzan EremMore by this author →

Suzan Erem is a fruit and nut farmer, working writer and community organizer in rural Cedar County, Iowa. Her Substack is Postcards from the Heartland. Her farm can be found at DracoHill.org.