Rob Sand and Democrats See 2026 Iowa Opens Senate Path
Rob Sand is not the only Democrat drawing attention in Iowa, but Josh Turek’s door-knocking in Cedar Rapids shows why the party thinks November could go differently there. The 47-year-old candidate, who is running for the U.S. Senate against Republican Sen. Joni Ernst, used a wheelchair while working a hilly neighborhood and told voters, “Hi! I’m Josh Turek, and I’m running for the U.S. Senate!”
Iowa Democrats believe they have a more-than-decent chance of winning back a Senate seat, at least two House seats, and the governor’s office in the November midterms. That would break a stretch in which every member of Iowa’s congressional delegation is a Republican and the governor’s mansion in Des Moines has housed a member of the GOP for 15 years.
Cedar Rapids and Josh Turek
Turek’s campaign stop in Cedar Rapids put a local face on the state’s broader political opening. After an hour of door-knocking, he described Iowa this way: “Iowa is a commonsense state masquerading as a red state.”
He is trying to replace Ernst in a state where active registered Republicans outnumber Democrats by 200,000. That gap is one reason his pitch stands out. So does his personal story: he was born with spina bifida after his father’s exposure to Agent Orange in the Vietnam War.
Iowa’s Republican edge
The numbers make the Democrats’ argument harder to dismiss. Iowa voters chose Donald Trump in three consecutive elections, yet Barack Obama won the state’s 2008 Democratic caucuses. Those results sit beside each other now as Democrats argue that the state’s registration and recent voting patterns do not settle the November race.
The current map is stark. Republicans hold every seat in Iowa’s congressional delegation, and the governor’s office has stayed in GOP hands for 15 years. Against that backdrop, Democrats are not talking about a single pickup. They are talking about multiple statewide and congressional contests at once.
November Midterms in Iowa
The practical question for voters is whether that opening turns into actual wins. Turek’s race against Ernst is the clearest Senate test, while the party’s target list also includes at least two House seats and the governor’s office. If Democrats reach even part of that goal, the state will no longer fit the simple red-state label that has followed it for years.
For now, the campaign trail image is a candidate in a wheelchair knocking on doors in a Cedar Rapids neighborhood, trying to convert local conversations into statewide votes. The size of the Republican registration edge and the party’s recent election history make the climb steep, but the Democrats’ own target list shows how far they think Iowa has moved.
