Ernst retirement watch, Sioux City special, Nate Boulton comeback
Sept. 1 edition of "KHOI's Capitol Week"
Last week I mentioned an event in Cedar Rapids, which was going to happen on September 11. We have postponed that fundraiser and are looking for a date later this fall that won’t conflict with any big local event. Stay tuned for more details, and let me know if you would like to host or attend a gathering in your community to support my work.
I’m grateful to Spencer Dirks and KHOI station manager Mike Murphy for being willing to do a live show on Labor Day. We had so much Iowa politics news to cover.
Let’s get right to it. The audio file from the September 1 edition of “KHOI’s Capitol Week” is at the top of this post. You can find all of our shows from the past three years here (KHOI’s website is currently under construction). Here’s your written recap. If your email provider truncates this post, you can read it without interruption at this link.
Joni Ernst 2026 announcement imminent
We began with the story everyone connected to Iowa politics has been talking about. CBS News was first to report on Friday that Ernst “has told confidantes” she plans to reveal this coming Thursday that she won't seek reelection in 2026.
Jennifer Jacobs landed this scoop for CBS. If her name sounds familiar, it’s probably because she was the Des Moines Register’s chief political reporter for several years in the 2010s. Full disclosure: I wasn’t a fan of her reporting. However, Jacobs is very well sourced with Republicans close to Joni Ernst. That has been true since Ernst’s first Senate campaign in 2014. So even though the senator hasn’t confirmed this story, I had no doubt in the accuracy of Jacobs’ reporting on the subject. The only thing she missed was the date of the announcement.
To clear up some confusion I heard over the weekend: there is no speculation that Ernst will step down before the end of her term. She made that clear in her video released this morning, confirming she won’t run again in 2026 but will serve out this term.
I wasn’t surprised by the news, for reasons Spencer and I have discussed on other shows. To recap: Ernst lost her Senate GOP leadership role last November. She then faced an intense pressure campaign over Pete Hegseth’s nomination for secretary of defense, which looked like overkill (since it was clear early on she would eventually vote for Hegseth.) She went all in on Elon Musk’s DOGE project, which looked risky at the time, and now he’s out of favor with Trumpworld.
Ernst didn’t help herself with that gaffe heard round the world: “Well, we all are going to die.” Finally, I wonder whether the decision to retire was linked to ProPublica’s investigation of the ethical concerns surrounding Ernst’s personal relationships with military liaisons working on Capitol Hill. Though we mentioned it on our show, that story didn’t get a lot of play in the Iowa media when first published in March. It certainly would have been fodder for negative advertising during a re-election campaign.
I wrote about all of these factors in July:
Since then, Ernst has maintained a relatively light summer schedule, with no flurry of news releases or other indications she was staffing up for a re-election campaign.
Speculation about the GOP field for Senate
NBC News confirmed the reporting that Ernst doesn’t plan to run again, adding, “NATO Ambassador Matt Whitaker would also consider running for the seat if Ernst declines to seek re-election, according to a source familiar with Whitaker’s thinking.”
Whitaker may be best known for senior Justice Department roles during the first Trump administration, including a short stint as acting U.S. Attorney General. Before then, he was a U.S. attorney (appointed by President George W. Bush). He ran for Senate in 2014 and finished fourth in the five-way GOP primary that Ernst won.
Since leaving the DOJ, Whitaker wrote a “thin excuse for a book” bashing the so-called “deep state” attacks on Trump. He’s now the U.S. ambassador to NATO, despite having no diplomatic or foreign policy background.
If Whitaker wants to run for Senate, that creates a dilemma for U.S. Representative Ashley Hinson. Everyone expects her to announce a Senate campaign relatively soon (probably by the end of September). I don’t think she would want to run against Whitaker in a GOP primary, though. Despite Hinson’s diligent efforts to curry favor with Trump, Whitaker would be better positioned to land the president’s endorsement.
My best guess is that Hinson and Whitaker will work something out. She might sit tight in the second Congressional district next year if Whitaker is determined to succeed Ernst. Or, if Whitaker decides to keep his cushy job in Brussels for a few years, Hinson will run for Senate next year, with a view to Whitaker running in 2028. That scenario seems more likely to me. UPDATE: Hinson announced on the afternoon of September 2 that she is “all in” on the Senate race.
I think Hinson would be the tougher general election opponent for Democrats. Whitaker has a lot of potential baggage. Before joining the Justice Department, he was involved with a company that allegedly ran an invention-promotion scam. (You may remember that story, because the supposed “masculine toilet” for well-endowed men generated a lot of coverage.)
In his current role, Whitaker has suggested that Ukraine might need to cede territory to Russia as part of a peace deal. That idea may not age well. Tt would represent an enormous change in U.S. policy, which has been not to recognize Russian sovereignty over territory it annexed in 2014 or seized since the full-scale invasion began in 2022.
While Hinson has been active in Iowa politics for most of the last decade, it’s been a long time since Whitaker played in the 1991 Rose Bowl as a tight end for the Iowa Hawkeyes.
Chuck Grassley still not ruling out 2028 campaign
We may be getting ahead of ourselves to talk about some other Republican running for Senate in 2028. As we mentioned during last week’s show, Senator Chuck Grassley hasn’t ruled out seeking a ninth term.
Since then, Grassley said the same thing in an August 26 conference call with reporters. I’m going by the Iowa Capital Dispatch reporting, since Grassley’s staff never allow me to participate in his press calls.
Speaking to the news media on Tuesday, the 91-year-old Republican told reporters to “ask me the question in a couple of years,” saying he would consider the same factors he has “through several re-elections, and that is family considerations and whether or not I can do the job.”
I don’t think he will run again. Not only would he be 95 years old in November 2028, his campaign has not been raising the kind of money I would expect from a senator planning to seek one more term.
Jim Carlin rolls out “principled conservative” endorsement
Former State Senator Jim Carlin confirmed in June that he would seek the Republican nomination for Senate in 2026. On Friday his campaign announced an endorsement from State Senator Sandy Salmon. She said of Carlin, “An Army veteran and plaintiff’s attorney, he is a freedom fighter, a people protector, a problem-solver and a corruption destroyer.”
These two are really peas in a pod. Years ago, they were among the few Iowa lawmakers to introduce legislation targeting transgender Iowans, such as bathroom bills or bans on gender-affirming care. This was long before Governor Kim Reynolds or GOP leaders made any effort to move such bills forward.
Carlin and Salmon also were vocal 2020 election deniers. In August 2021, they were the only Iowa lawmakers to attend a symposium held by Mike Lindell (the My Pillow guy). In September 2021, they were among 41 legislators from sixteen states to sign a letter calling on forensic audits in all 50 states, followed by steps in “each state to decertify its electors where it has been shown the elections were certified prematurely and inaccurately.” Then the U.S. House would have decided the winner, with each state’s delegation getting one vote. That process had no connection to reality, or to the U.S. Constitution.
Carlin received about 26.5 percent of the vote in the 2022 GOP primary against Grassley. His campaign indicated Salmon would be “the first in an anticipated series of endorsements from principled conservatives.”
Big win for Catelin Drey in Iowa Senate special election
Just about every Iowa media outlet and many national news organizations covered last week’s special election in Iowa Senate district 1, where Democrat Catelin Drey won by about 10 points in an area Donald Trump carried by 11. She carried nineteen of the 22 precincts; Kamala Harris only carried seven of them.
Versions of this district covering much of Sioux City (other than the south side or Morningside area) used to be relatively safe for Democrats. But Republican Rick Bertrand won here in the 2010 GOP wave and held the seat in 2014. Democrat Jackie Smith defeated Bertrand in the first Trump midterm, but lost by about ten points to Rocky De Witt in 2022.
The upshot is that Republicans have represented this area in the Iowa Senate for all but four of the last fifteen years. Redistricting in 2021 brought more of rural Woodbury County into this district. So Trump’s strong showing here in 2024 wasn’t a one-off, but a reflection of broader political trends in the area. It was genuinely an uphill battle for Drey.
Spencer and I shared some of our takeaways: campaign everywhere, with candidates rooted in the community, a strong GOTV effort, a good social media game and outreach in multiple languages. You can find more in my previous coverage:
preview of the race, covering the political landscape, background on the candidates, fundraising, and advertising
post-election interview (with Zachary Oren Smith) of Drey and Senate Democratic Leader Janice Weiner
Incidentally, some Republicans have downplayed the victory by claiming 30,000 volunteers came to help Drey. She told Zachary Oren Smith and me that the phone bank link was shared in a group with 30,000 members. That doesn’t mean all of them were making calls—that would be more than the number of voters they were targeting.
I expect many Democrats to run versions of the negative ad that made a broad case against Republican governance in Iowa, rather than a targeted message about the GOP nominee’s extremism.
Woodbury County supervisor’s epic rant about the special election
Some Republicans around the state complained that the Woodbury County GOP hadn’t done enough to help Christopher Prosch win the special election. Republican County Supervisor Mark Nelson had a few things to say about that in an epic rant posted to Facebook last Wednesday. As of Monday evening this video had more than 48,000 views on Facebook. I would estimate that probably 20 people sent the link to me—keep those news tips coming!
I can’t figure out how to embed a Facebook video on Substack, but you can view all of Nelson’s comments here. It’s worth seventeen minutes of your time.
He did give credit to Catelin Drey and Woodbury Democrats for running a good ground game, but he thought his own party was more responsible for the outcome: "I do think that it was about Kim Reynolds. [...] and about what Republicans have done in the Iowa legislature for several years now. [...] The policy that's been coming out of Des Moines, if you're a regular Iowan—Republican, independent, Democrat—has just been awful."
We didn’t have time during the show to read all of the interesting comments. Here’s Nelson on allowing Summit Carbon Solutions to take private property to build a CO2 pipeline: "That's like a 95 plus percent issue across the state of Iowa regardless of party affiliation. The taking of private property for private gain is just wrong. It just is. I'm sorry, Governor, I'm sorry, AG Bird, I'm sorry, Iowa Senate, you've got it completely wrong. Completely wrong. And it's all about the money. You just want Rastetter's money, and we'll just turn a blind eye to the party principles."
He also criticized the GOP-led legislature for picking fights with Democrats instead of trying to make Iowa better. “And then you wonder why you're losing these special elections by wide margins. Iowans aren't dumb."
On education: "Teachers. There are so many conservative teachers that wouldn’t stop to help Kim Reynolds if her car was broke down on the side of the road. That's putting it nicely. Because of what they’ve done to public schools. You've got--they have basically made school boards a formality. [...] They've taken all the power away from local and sent it to Des Moines.”
Here’s another: "So, I'm sorry, Iowa GOP, Kim Reynolds, Iowa legislature--any of these special elections that you guys are losing and these seats are getting flipped to Democrats--this is 100 percent a product of the crap you've been putting out of Des Moines for years now. You folks are not listening to constituents."
Nelson also had some choice words about the governor’s race, predicting that State Auditor Rob Sand would win in a landslide. He described Randy Feenstra as “the weakest representative that Congressional District 4 has ever seen,” adding that Feenstra is “Running for governor, which hopefully that never happens."
Although I don’t think Sand would win in a landslide, Nelson’s comments point to real weakness in the GOP field for governor. Some Republicans are quite concerned about Sand’s candidacy. I hear this from some of my contacts as well.
Nelson slammed the pesticide immunity bill (which has cleared the Senate twice but stalled in the Iowa House). He also criticized Republicans for passing a law to "neuter" the state auditor's office. "The auditor has an important job. [...] You've neutered that office, a duly elected statewide office, because you don't like what they're doing. We don't know why, Governor Reynolds. Is there corruption? Is that why? Why are you doing this to the auditor?"
Although I still see Republicans as favored in Iowa’s 2026 statewide races, Nelson’s comments underscore some big problems for the party, especially if Feenstra becomes the nominee for governor. Most of the Facebook comments below the video were supportive of Nelson’s take.
One more thing: Nelson accused Feenstra of trying to recruit primary challengers against Republicans who had endorsed Kevin Virgil in last year’s primary. He said that was “petty.” I’m seeking more details on that allegation, which I can’t independently confirm.
Democrat Dave Dawson running for Congress in IA-04
The special election result overshadowed some other news out of Woodbury County last Wednesday: Democrat Dave Dawson is running for Congress. He’s a longtime prosecutor in Woodbury County and served two terms in the Iowa House, covering the west side of Sioux City (similar to the area J.D. Scholten represents now).
Dawson decided not to seek re-election to the Iowa House in 2016, in part because he and his wife wanted to raise their kids in a small town. They live in Lawton, a little east of Sioux City. I interviewed him last Thursday:
He emphasized his legislative experience and how he’d worked in a bipartisan way to get bills through a GOP-controlled chamber on topics including mental health services, highway funding, and sentencing reform. He supports labor unions and collective bargaining rights, as well as the public pension program known as IPERS.
Asked why Democrats should vote for him in the primary, Dawson described himself as "a true public servant" who can get results for people in his district.
Dawson’s campaign and legislative experience give him an advantage over Democrats Stephanie Steiner and Ashley WolfTornabane in next year’s primary. But there’s a long way to go until next June.
Recap of Iowa’s 2026 election landscape
Since there have been so many candidate announcements this spring and summer, we wanted to step back and review who’s running for what in Iowa next year. We’ll start with the federal offices; each link will take you to past coverage of the various candidate announcements on “KHOI’s Capitol Week.”
Senate: Jim Carlin, and maybe Ashley Hinson or Matt Whitaker will seek the Republican nomination. Joshua Smith has also said he’s running, but I question whether he will qualify for the ballot.
Democratic candidates: Nathan Sage, Zach Wahls, Jackie Norris, and Josh Turek.
IA-01: Incumbent Mariannette Miller-Meeks is expected to run again, but she hasn’t made that official. David Pautsch is also seeking the GOP nomination.
We mentioned four Democratic candidates: Christina Bohannan, Taylor Wettach, Travis Terrell, and Bob Krause. However, on September 2 Krause announced that he’s dropping out of the race in IA-01 and running for U.S. Senate instead.
IA-02: It’s wide open on the Republican side if incumbent Ashley Hinson runs for Senate, as expected. I’ve heard speculation about Carrie Koelker, Shannon Lundgren, and Tiffany O’Donnell.
Four Democrats are running: Kathy Dolter, Clint Twedt-Ball, Lindsay James, and Don Primus.
IA-03: After a weird trial balloon about running for governor, incumbent Zach Nunn confirmed he’s seeking re-election. I haven’t heard about other Republican candidates.
Three Democrats are campaigning here: Sarah Trone Garriott, Jennifer Konfrst, and Xavier Carrigan.
IA-04: With Randy Feenstra expected to run for governor, four Republicans have declared here: Chris McGowan, Matt Windschitl, Kyle Larsen, and Ryan Rhodes.
Three Democrats are running: Stephanie Steiner, Ashley WolfTornabane, and Dave Dawson.
As for the statewide races:
Governor: Brad Sherman, Eddie Andrews, and Adam Steen are all seeking the GOP nomination. Republicans Feenstra and Mike Bousselot are officially still exploring but widely expected to run as well.
Rob Sand and Julie Stauch are seeking the Democratic nomination.
Attorney general: Brenna Bird will run for a second term. It looks like Nate Willems will be unopposed for the Democratic nomination.
Secretary of state: Paul Pate will run for a fifth term. The only declared Democratic candidate is Ryan Peterman.
Secretary of agriculture: Mike Naig will run for a third term. I’m not aware of a Democratic candidate.
State treasurer: Roby Smith is expected to run for a second term, but he hasn’t made that official. I’m not aware of a Democratic candidate.
State auditor: Chris Cournoyer and Abigail Maas are seeking the Republican nomination. I’m not aware of a Democratic candidate.
I’ve interviewed the Democrats running for all of these offices. You can find those videos on Bleeding Heartland’s YouTube channel.
The Libertarian Party is the wildcard. They fielded a full slate of candidates for federal and statewide offices in 2018, but very few candidates in 2022. Charles Aldrich has said he plans to run for governor next year, and Thomas Laehn is exploring a Senate campaign. It will be harder for any Libertarians to qualify for the ballot in 2026, because they lost their major-party status last year. That means each candidate will need to collect a lot of signatures, instead of being nominated at a statewide convention.
Rob Sand lands first union endorsement
A few days before Labor Day, Rob Sand rolled out the first labor union endorsement for his gubernatorial campaign. It’s from SEIU Healthcare Minnesota & Iowa, which represents thousands of nurses and health care workers in Iowa.
People think of nurses as a largely Democratic constituency, but there are a lot of Republican nurses. I’ll be be very interested to see whether cuts to Medicaid and other programs hurt the GOP nominee with that group.
Hinson trying to rebrand reconciliation bill
Ashley Hinson held two town hall meetings last week, in Worth and Howard counties on the state’s northern tier. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that unlike most of IA-02, those counties are not part of the Cedar Rapids television market, and are harder for reporters from larger cities to reach. I haven’t been able to find any full video recording of the town halls.
Tom Beaumont of the Associated Press covered the Worth County event. He observed afterwards that Hinson only called the budget reconciliation measure the “big beautiful bill” one time. She mostly called it the “working families tax cut bill.” Beaumont pointed out that polls suggest most Americans view that budget reconciliation bill as benefiting wealthy people. I would guess that a memo went out to House Republicans urging them to start calling it the working families tax cut bill.
The Democratic-aligned group American Bridge 21st Century was filming her event in Worth County and posted a snippet. In that clip, some members of the crowd yelled at Hinson and told her to “stop lying” after she claimed “thanks to tax cuts and higher wages.”
Nate Boulton seeking political comeback
We don’t have time in our 30-minute show to cover most state legislative campaign announcements, but we did want to mention one new candidate whose name will be familiar to listeners. Former State Senator Nate Boulton, who narrowly lost his 2024 re-election bid, announced Friday that he will run for the Iowa House next year.
The Senate district where he lost by just 44 votes out of 31,000 ballots cast won’t be on the ballot again until 2028. So he’s running in the more Democratic half of that territory, Iowa House district 39, where long-serving Iowa House Democrat Rick Olson won’t seek re-election next year. This area of Polk County used to be a Democratic stronghold but has become Trumpy. Boulton outperformed Kamala Harris here, even though the GOP spent about three quarters of a million dollars on his Iowa Senate race.
I wrote more at Bleeding Heartland about the political landscape in House district 39 and Boulton’s campaign announcement. There may be a competitive Democratic primary; some activists are not happy to see Boulton back in politics because of the sexual harassment allegations that ended his campaign for governor in 2018. He didn’t have any primary challengers in 2020 or 2024.
Grassley to question RFK Jr. over CDC purge
Senator Chuck Grassley told reporters on Friday that he plans to question Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. this week about the shakeup at the Centers for Disease Control. Last week, the White House said President Donald Trump was firing CDC Director Susan Monarez, less than a month after the Senate confirmed her to the position. Several senior CDC officials resigned in protest.
Monarez was supposedly fired because she wouldn’t go along with revised vaccine recommendations. RFK Jr. is scheduled to testify this Thursday at a Senate Finance Committee hearing, which is why Grassley would be able to question him.
Brianne Pfannenstiel covered this story for the Des Moines Register. Grassley said, “I think we need more direction where he's headed for,” adding that “he wants scientists and public health officials to be making decisions about vaccines.”
Trump, Grassley still tangling over “blue slips”
The president and Senator Grassley continue to argue about the Judiciary Committee’s “blue slip” tradition, which allows senators to put a hold on judicial nominees for their home states. Last week, Trump said he may sue to stop the practice. He claims blue slips are “based on an old custom. It’s not based on a law. And I think it’s unconstitutional.”
I don’t think any lawsuit would get far. There are separation of powers problems, since the Constitution is clear about Congress being able to set their own rules. Also, the Constitution gives the Senate the power to confirm many presidential appointments. So it’s not accurate for Trump to say his “Constitutional Right” to appoint judges and U.S. attorneys “has been completely taken away from me.”
Grassley sounded exasperated in an interview last week with a couple of Iowa reporters. He cited Republican colleagues who were quoted in The Hill as saying the White House was “picking a fight you can’t win.”
He said he’d done a lot to help Trump get “controversial” nominees confirmed including the attorney general, FBI director, and Emil Bove as a judge on the third circuit court of appeals. “I’m trying to have the president have wins out of my committee and not losses.”
In the same interview, Grassley said the blue slip practice helped Trump, because it gave him 28 more District Court openings to fill. “I think he forgets that,” Grassley said of the president. “He ought to be thankful” that Republican senators preserved those openings during the Biden administration.
My tour of the new federal court building in Des Moines
The U.S. District Court of the Southern District of Iowa finished moving into a new building in downtown Des Moines in June (about three years behind the original schedule). We had about a minute to talk about the open house I attended last Friday.
The new federal courthouse is just west of the Des Moines River between Grand and Locust, where the YMCA used to be. Staff for the U.S. District Court provided this photo of the building, taken by Doug Johnston.
Lots of people stopped in during the open house, including Attorney General Bird, Senator Grassley, and Governor Reynolds. The tour was quite interesting.
The building is much more spacious, with more courtrooms and chambers for judges. It has room for some offices that previously were in a separate annex, so the judges and staff are all in the same building now.
It’s very light, with windows on both sides featuring views of the state capitol and the downtown skyline from every floor. There’s better technology; for instance, in every jury box, jurors have individual screens making it easier for them to see evidence.
Some of the design elements improve security at the courthouse. There are more holding cells, and separate elevators for judges and for defendants.
This building is open to the public, but you’ll have to leave your phone and any recording devices at home or in your car. I forgot to mention that the whole building is accessible to people with disabilities.
Thanks so much for reading or listening. I’ll be back next week with a guest host, while Spencer enjoys a little time off.
You’re going to be busy. Looks like competitive primaries all over
The rant is worth listening too, much truth from a Republican supervisor.