Before President Donald Trump won Iowa three times in a row, Democrats took the state in six of the seven presidential races between 2012 and 1988.
Next week, Iowa Democrats are competitive in a Senate race, gubernatorial race, and three House races; if they win, Democrats think it might put Iowa back in the mix as a presidential swing state.
Iowa Democratic Senate nominee Josh Turek told Semafor that it “absolutely” could be, as long as the candidate is “a common-sense, prairie populist like myself, [who’s] going to focus on economic populism and not culture war stuff. We are not a red state. We’re a common-sense state that’s masqueraded more red than what we are.”
Republicans argue that 2026 is an anomaly with no incumbents running for governor or Senate: “This is the first time since 1968 that we’ve had both open seats,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.