Sen Ernst "We All Die" Town Hall Gives Dems Shot At Her Seat & Senate Control

Joni Ernst is vulnerable in Iowa. It's up to Democrats to notice...and take advantage.

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by Brett Di Resta

After five long months of navel-gazing, Democrats are finally looking up and realizing that they need to expand the playing field in order to retake the U.S. Senate. Believe it or not, some guy named John Thune is currently the Majority Leader (He’s the South Dakota Republican who hasn’t murdered a dog).

Democrats need to win 4 seats, while holding all of their own, to return Thune to the back benches. Or before Republicans in the chamber decide to give Mitch McConnell one last chance by hooking him up Evil-Emperor-style to a machine that gives him a transfusion. Not of blood, but additional Exxon donations.

To rid themselves of McConnell (retiring) and Thune, there are a few obvious places to start for Democrats. First and foremost, they need to finally send Susan “I’m sure Trump learned his lesson this time” Collins packing.

Democrats will also be targeting the North Carolina seat that Senator Thom Tillis holds. For both races, the hope is that former popular Democratic Governors in each state will challenge the two (That’s Janet Mills in Maine and Roy Cooper in North Carolina).

Beyond those two, the general consensus is that the pickings are slim for Democrats in upcoming Senate contests. Now, the general consensus is often worth what you can find splattered throughout barns across Iowa farms, but it’s a good barometer.

And, recent events, combined with the electoral history of Iowa Senator Joni Ernst should be enough to change that conventional wisdom. And convince Democrats to make winning this seat a priority.

Ernst rocketed into the public consciousness with an ad in which she bragged about her ability to castrate hogs. Yes, I’m not kidding. While I didn’t see the appeal, many Iowans did, and she defeated Democratic Congressman Bruce Braley in 2014.

That year was catastrophic for Democrats, as Republicans won 9 Senate seats to retake the Senate, and a lot more in various races across the country. Yet, in this big Republican year, Ernst defeated Braley 52-43.

A comfortable win, but not an overwhelming defeat considering the tidal wave that Republicans were riding that year. You could even call Ernst’s win a bit truncated compared to the other Republicans on the ballot.

Flash forward six years, and Ernst was up for re-election against a relatively unknown opponent, Theresa Greenfield. Ernst held onto her seat seat by a margin of 51.8% to 45.2%. At the same time, Trump carried Iowa by a wider margin during his unsuccessful reelection campaign, 53-45.

Again, Ernst won by a decent margin, but some of her vote was lopped off from her previous run. She not only won by less than she had in 2014, but with a relatively low percentage. So despite running in a red wave in 2014, and with Trump on the top of the ticket in 2020, Ernst could never top 52% of the vote. The sign of a strong candidate this is not.

While it is too early to predict the make-up of the electorate in 2026, it will almost certainly be bluer than 2014, and better for Democrats without Trump on the ballot. This alone should have put the seat on the radar of Democrats trying, against the odds, to win back the Senate by carving out some new territory.

But what should really motivate Democrats is the absolute slicing and dicing of Ernt’s image the last year. In December, Ernst took considerable flak from The Right for her initial reluctance to support Trump’s Secretary of Defense nominee, Pete Hegseth.

Of course, Ernst quickly folded, neutered by talk of a GOP primary. Some MAGA types still will never forgive her initial reluctance to support keg-stand-in-human form turned Fox News weekend host who clearly was ready to run the Pentagon. Meanwhile, her pathetic capitulation angered women and veterans, some of whom will not forgive her.

But it got worse for Ernst. In March, she faced scrutiny for an alleged romance with a General who lobbied her office. The General saw his ranking slashed as he was demoted for his actions. Despite reports, Ernst denied the affair, and the issue faded quickly (surely, the General must have been demoted because there was nothing there).

If those incidents created a snippet of a challenge, Ernst’s recent statement caused a full shearing. During a town hall with constituents, a member of the audience shouted that GOP Medicaid cuts would cause people to die, which is when Ernst calmly and callously responded, “We all are going to die.”

In the ensuing uproar, and in true MAGA fashion, Ernst sought to double down on Her Stupid rather than apologize. She released a bizarre, sarcastic video defending the morbid comments she’d made. Some might call it a bit freaky (can someone ask Madison Cawthorn if there was blotter acid those parties he talked about?).

She even filmed her weird, surrealist short film in a graveyard! (All testes of the buried remain intact, as far as we know). Her handling of the issue, which shouldn’t be surprising, has been widely criticized, and it has only emboldened a challenger.

Make no mistake, any Democrat taking Ernst will be a underdog in their attempt to win this seat. Ernst is an incumbent, and the GOP will put up a massive fight with a whole lotta spending to hold onto it.

But any dream of Democrats retaking the Senate requires Ernst to take an electoral whacking, if you will. And a well-funded Democrat running an aggressive, well-messaged, clever campaign with, um…balls, should have a solid chance.

If all goes right, ‘ole Joni just may end up on the chopping block. And Democrats may have the majority needed to enable one more key Washington institution to defend our democracy.

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Brett Di Resta is President of The Maccabee Group, a political research and communications firm, and an adjunct professor at George Washington University School of Political Management, as well as the University of San Francisco.

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