‘Iowa is in play’: Democrats see a chance to turn the longtime red state blue

Iowa, a deep-red state for decades that voted for President Trump in three consecutive elections, may be on the verge of choosing a Democratic governor, flipping a Republican Senate seat and capturing two Republican House seats.

Hawkeye State voters, it seems, have grown increasingly frustrated with tariffs, the war in Iran and the high cost of living.

The state’s top Republicans scoffed at the chance that Iowa could turn blue, but poll numbers show the party’s dominance there could come to an end in November, and Democrats are energized.

“Iowa is in play. We’re going to win this governor’s race, we’re going to take back the House, and we are going to flip this U.S. Senate seat,” said state Rep. Josh Turek, a top contender for the seat held by retiring Republican Sen. Joni Ernst.

Before Democrats can take on the presumptive Republican nominee, Rep. Ashley Hinson, they must first navigate a contentious June 2 primary between Mr. Turek and state Sen. Zach Wahls. The primary has become a microcosm of the national party’s ideological divide.

The biggest threat to the Iowa Republican Party is Rob Sand, the Democratic candidate for governor and the state’s current auditor. Voters have come to know him through his social media posts about bow-hunting, pizza reviews and fraud investigations involving members of both parties.

Iowa has elected a string of Republican governors since 2010, but polls suggest Mr. Sand is poised to break the Republicans’ 16-year winning streak. He is ahead of lesser-known Republican Rep. Randy Feenstra by 12 percentage points in the latest Echelon Insights poll, and he edged ahead of Mr. Feenstra by 8 points in an earlier poll conducted by the Democratic polling firm GBAO.

State politics expert Patrick Rynard explained why the Democrat is surging ahead.

“Iowans already know Rob Sand as an authentic Iowan. They’ll only know Randy Feenstra as a politician,” Mr. Rynard recently wrote.

The same Echelon Insights poll showed both Democratic candidates in the June 2 primary, Mr. Turek and Mr. Wahls, edging slightly ahead of Rep. Ashley Hinson, the presumptive Republican nominee in the U.S. Senate race.

The Echelon poll was small, with a margin of error of 6.6 percentage points, meaning voter sentiment could be off by more than 6 percentage points in either direction. Still, the numbers have bolstered Democrats’ confidence that they have an opportunity in November to win a Senate race for the first time in nearly two decades and flip two Republican-held House seats now rated toss-ups.

Last month, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report shifted the governor’s race to “toss-up.”

On Thursday, the publication released more bad news for Republicans. It polled thousands of voters across dozens of competitive House districts, including the two toss-up districts in Iowa. The results showed Mr. Trump’s approval rating “deeply underwater.”

Just 42% of likely voters surveyed approved of the job he is doing, compared with 58% who disapproved. Among independents, a growing faction of the electorate, particularly in Iowa, the president received a dismal 70% disapproval rating.

The poll also found Democrats leading Republicans on nearly every issue except border security. Voters gave Democrats a 9-point lead on cost of living and a 6-point advantage on the economy, two top voter concerns.

“Voters are deeply frustrated with Trump and are willing to overlook their antipathy to Democrats in order to put a check on the president,” said Cook Political’s Editor-in-Chief Amy Walter and Managing Editor Carrie Dann.

The GBAO survey, conducted by Democrats, also found Mr. Trump’s approval rating is underwater in Iowa.

Exactly half of Iowa voters surveyed gave the president an unfavorable rating, while 45% viewed him favorably.

In Iowa, some blame the electorate’s mood swing on Mr. Trump’s tariffs, which have harmed the state’s agricultural exports and raised equipment costs. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz to shipping during the Iran war has also hurt the state by raising fertilizer costs, since the strait is a central shipping channel for oil, fertilizer and other goods.

Iowa Democrats highlighted an American Farm Bureau report released last month that found half of Midwestern farmers were struggling to pay for fertilizer since the Iran war began.

“The vast majority of farmers fed up with high costs and negative profits aren’t going to let Iowa’s DC politicians off the hook this November,” Iowa Democratic Party Chair Rita Hart said.

Mr. Trump won Iowa in all three presidential elections in which he was a candidate, taking the state by more than 13 points in 2024.

Iowa Republican Party Chairman Jeff Kaufman told The Washington Times that Democrats are greatly exaggerating their chances of winning statewide offices.

Voter registration among Republicans exceeds that of Democrats by 200,000, a significant advantage that will make it difficult for Democrats to win statewide races.

April data provided by the Iowa secretary of state show 503,000 registered Democrats and nearly 702,000 registered Republicans.

More than 595,000 voters registered as independents, the faction that the latest polls show gives Mr. Trump an abysmal approval rating.

“Could they make some gains with some of the independent voters? Possibly,” Mr. Kaufmann said. “But I can guarantee you their bleeding Democratic registration is every bit a canary in the coal mine as some polls that show them ahead.”

Mr. Kaufmann acknowledged frustration among Iowans because of high fertilizer prices and other cost spikes associated with the war and tariffs, particularly among corn and soybean farmers.

Iowans, he insisted, “are willing to show patience,” and won’t migrate to Democrats whose liberal policies they have rejected for nearly 20 years.

Jessica Taylor, the Cook Political Report’s Senate and governors’ races editor, said it will be easier for Iowa Democrats to flip the governor’s seat than to win a Senate seat.

It would mirror other red states governed by Democrats, including Kentucky, Kansas and Louisiana, where no Democrats have captured U.S. Senate seats.

“Iowa is still a Republican state, and that is what makes it more difficult at the federal level,” Ms. Taylor said. “That doesn’t mean it can’t happen if there is a big enough blue wave. We just don’t know yet.”