On a warm spring afternoon at the Newton Public Library, about 25 people fill the seats in a small room to listen to Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Zach Wahls speak.
He was making his pitch to voters as to why he should be Iowa's next U.S senator. Wahls said he wants to go to Washington, D.C., to stand up to what he believes are corrupt leaders and policies that are hurting Iowans.
"At its best, government can do important things to make people's lives better," he said. "But government can't do that if it has lost the trust of the people, and that is why we need to clean up this corruption, restore that trust — and it has to happen fast."
For the first time in 12 years, Iowa is facing an election for an open U.S. Senate seat after Republican Sen. Joni Ernst announced last fall she would not seek a third term.
Following Ernst's announcement in September, U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson jumped in the race, and she quickly emerged as the Republican frontrunner. But she's facing challenges from two Democratic state lawmakers —Wahls and Josh Turek — who hope to flip the seat.
Both the Democratic and Republican primaries are on June 2.
Flipping Iowa's U.S. Senate seat
Wahls first gained attention as a teenager in 2011 when a video of him testifying in front of Iowa lawmakers in support of his gay parents went viral.
He's currently serving his second term as a state senator from Coralville, representing a far-left leaning district that he has easily won in both elections. In his last election in 2022, he ran unopposed.
But for the U.S. Senate race, Wahls is facing Turek, a state representative who's running against him for the Democratic nomination.
"My campaign is about, first and foremost, raising the minimum wage and about affordable and accessible healthcare, affordable housing, drinkable water and addressing the corruption that we're seeing in D.C.," he said during a Democratic primary debate on Iowa PBS this month.
Turek is a two-time gold medalist, playing basketball in the Paralympics. In contrast to Wahls, he's in his second term representing a conservative district in Pottawattamie County, which voted for President Donald Trump three times. He flipped his House seat in 2022, edging out his Republican opponent by just six votes.
At a Democratic forum in Des Moines in early April, he said that makes him better positioned to flip the Senate seat.
"I know that there is something specific about my story, my background, my resume and my politics that has a unique ability to connect with independents and with Republicans," Turek said.
Turek has picked up endorsements from a number of current and former Democratic senators, including Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois and Iowa's former U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin.
Wahls has been endorsed by many labor unions across the state and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who held a campaign event with him this week.
Standing out to Iowa voters
At this point, Turek and Wahls are neck and neck when it comes to fundraising, but they're behind Republican frontrunner Hinson. The former TV journalist has represented northeastern Iowa in Congress since 2022.
Hinson currently has more than $6.5 million in the bank, far more than Wahls, who has about $1 million, and Turek, who has about $750,000.
She's also facing a less competitive Republican primary against former state Sen. Jim Carlin, who she has far outraised.
Carlin told IPR News in an interview that he's concerned Hinson's campaign is being propped up by out-of-state donors, like the Senate Leadership Fund. The super PAC that supports Republican candidates has pledged to spend $29 million on behalf of Hinson's campaign.
"That should concern us, because I don't think it's going to be Iowans that are going to be represented," Carlin said. "I think it's largely going to be defined by the biggest donors and the biggest corporations that tell her how to vote."
Hinson's been endorsed by top Republican leaders — such as Trump, Ernst, Sen. Chuck Grassley and Gov. Kim Reynolds — and she has long supported Trump and many of his policies.
"I fight alongside him every single day to make sure his agenda, the America First agenda, becomes an America First reality for our country," Hinson told conservative activists at the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition dinner earlier in May.
Hinson has many strong political and fundraising connections, but she still has a lot of work to do with Iowa voters, said Rachel Paine Caufield, a professor of political science at Drake University.
"It's fair to say that most Iowa voters outside of her district have only kind of a hazy idea of who she is as a candidate and what her central message is, what her public persona is, what her primary platform is, aside from: she's a Republican who has supported Donald Trump," Paine Caufield said.
The competitive primary may help Democrats Wahls and Turek in this aspect, Paine Caufield said, the way it helped a then-unknown Ernst back in 2014 when she was trying to flip Harkin's open Senate seat.
"She had to define who she was to voters, and she had to have a clear message and a clear public persona," Paine Caufield said. "So, by time she got to the general [election], she was exceptionally well-known. She had a great team. She had a clear message."
But Democratic voters like Kathy Tipton are still trying to figure out where each candidate stands.
At the Newton Public Library, Tipton said she went to Wahls' event because she knows she wants a Democrat to be Iowa's next senator, but she's not sure who she wants to vote for.
"I'm listening, you know, I'll give everybody a fair chance, and then I'll make my decision, but they're both presenting themselves very well. I like that," she said.
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