‘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 GOP House seats.

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

The state’s top Republicans scoffed at the threat of Iowa turning 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 gonna win this governor’s race, we’re gonna take back the House, and we are going to flip this U.S. Senate seat,” said Josh Turek, a Democrat running to fill the Senate seat now held by Republican Joni Ernst, who isn’t running for another term.

The biggest threat to the Iowa GOP is Rob Sand, the Democratic candidate for governor and the state’s current auditor who voters have gotten to know through his social media posts about bow-hunting, pizza reviews and digging up fraud committed by both parties.

Iowa has elected a string of Republican governors since 2006, but polls suggest Mr. Sand is poised to break the GOP’s two-decade winning streak. He’s beating lesser-known Republican Rep. Randy Feenstra by 12 points in the latest Echelon Insight 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, Mr. Turek and Zach Wahls, edging slightly ahead of Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson in the U.S. Senate race.

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

Earlier this month, the non-partisan 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 in dozens of competitive House congressional districts, among them the two toss-up districts in Iowa. The results showed Mr. Trump’s approval rating is “deeply underwater.”

Just 42% of likely voters surveyed said they approved of the job he’s doing, compared to 58% who said they 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 the GOP 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,” Cook Political’s Editor-in-Chief Amy Walter and Managing Editor Carrie Dann said.

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

Exactly half of Iowa voters surveyed gave the president an unfavorable rating, compared to 45% who gave the president a favorable rating.

In Iowa, some blame the electorate’s mood swing on Mr. Trump’s tariffs that have harmed the state’s agricultural exports and hiked the cost of equipment. The Iran war has also hurt the state by raising fertilizer costs thanks to the nearly impassable Strait of Hormuz, a central shipping channel for oil, fertilizer and other goods.

Iowa Democrats highlighted an American Farm Bureau report released earlier this month that found half of Midwest 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 and took the state by more than 12 points in 2024.

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

Voter registration among Republicans currently outnumbers Democrats by 200,000 people, 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 there’s frustration among Iowans due to high fertilizer prices and other cost spikes associated with the war and tariffs, particularly among corn and soybean farmers.

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

Jessica Taylor, Cook Report’s Senate and governor’s races analyst, 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 been able to capture 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.”