“You suck, Joni! That’s just the nicest way I can summarize how we’re all feeling about your reign so far,” says Joshua Smith in the first digital ad promoting his Republican campaign for Iowa’s U.S. Senate seat.

The video previews what will be an aggressive campaign by Senator Joni Ernst’s 2026 primary challenger from the right.

Tim Winter recently resigned from the Iowa Democratic Party’s State Central Committee after being elected three times to serve on that body. Last year he chaired the State Arrangements Committee, the SCC Small Dollar Donor Work Group, and ProIowa 24. He is the former chair of the Boone County Democrats. Born and raised in southwest Minnesota, he is a farm kid whose family was originally from heritage farm outside Boyden, Iowa. He earned a BS degree in Agricultural Business and Agronomy from Iowa State University. He has worked as an executive for several large agribusiness companies and now owns and operates a landscaping business and specialty crop farm. 

Editor’s note from Laura Belin: The State Central Committee will meet in Ankeny on January 4 to elect an Iowa Democratic Party chair for the next four years. Tim Winter emailed the following action plan members of the party’s governing body on December 31 and shared the text with Bleeding Heartland. As with Rita Hart’s plan, I have not edited the text in any way. All words in bold or underlined were that way in the original document. You can download Tim Winter’s plan as a pdf here.

UPDATE: Hart won the election by 38 votes to ten for Winter and one for Nickolas-Dermody. Kim Callahan was also nominated during the January 4 meeting but did not win any votes.

Happy New Year’s Eve to you and your family.  Today, I am announcing my candidacy for Iowa Democratic Party (IDP) Chair.  Along with this announcement, I have included my paper on What is happening in the Iowa Democratic Party.  

The proposals I have read from those who are interested in running and are running, all have one big thing in common.  Iowa Democrats are losing badly and the SCC must be reorganized.  They believe the SCC must be decreased in size.  Your power, involvement and representation are to be taken away and then centralize the power with staff.  They all state that we need a field organizing force, however, few ideas are given to help implement this or they drop the responsibilities on an overworked staffer.

My plan is different.  We don’t decrease the strength of the SCC.  We change the roles so members have more responsibility and potency, dramatically increase our volunteer force and rebuild our County Party Organizational System.  We concentrate on organizing activities in the field!

The Iowa Democratic Party’s State Central Committee will meet in Ankeny on January 4 to elect a state chair for the next four years. Rita Hart, who has served in that role since early 2023, is seeking another term. She emailed the following action plan (“Forward: Victory 2026”) to State Central Committee members on December 23. The Iowa Democratic Party’s Progressive Caucus shared the document on Facebook on December 30.

Bleeding Heartland has not edited the text in any way, other than to move two sentences from a footnote to square brackets alongside the relevant phrase (for formatting reasons). All words in bold or italics were that way in the original document. You can download Rita Hart’s plan as a pdf here.

UPDATE: Hart won the election by 38 votes to ten for Tim Winter and one for Alexandra Nickolas-Dermody. Kim Callahan was also nominated during the January 4 meeting but did not win any votes.

Dear SCC members, Leaders, and fellow Democrats,

The 2023-2024 election cycle for IDP combined two ideas that are hard to hold at the same time. First, I am proud of the work our team has done to rebuild IDP as an institution. When I was elected, IDP had laid off all but 2.5 staffers. We did not have full-time Finance, Communications, or Data staff. We were $100k in debt. Over the last two years, despite challenges including a hostile DNC, a complete turnover in staff, and a cancer diagnosis, we have stabilized IDP and built a team that can execute an off-year plan starting in January 2025.

However, it clearly was not enough and we have a great deal more work to do. Two years ago, I wrote to you: “…serving as IDP Chair has never been an ambition of mine, but I care deeply about the success of Iowa Democrats. As a teacher, a farmer, a state senator, LG and congressional candidate, I have seen time and time again how the policies our leaders implement affect every day Iowans. My focus is squarely on helping our party begin winning elections again.” It is cold comfort that Iowa swung to the right less than the rest of the country (6 points nationally vs. 5 in Iowa) or that Christina Bohannan had one of the strongest overperformances in the country. We need to win.

Iowa’s all-Republican delegation voted the same way on almost every bill that came before both chambers during the 118th Congress, which wrapped up its work in the early hours of December 21. But one of the last bills sent to President Joe Biden, the Social Security Fairness Act, revealed an unusual disagreement among the Iowans serving in the U.S. House and Senate.

When the House approved the bill by 327 votes to 75 in November, U.S. Representatives Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-01), Ashley Hinson (IA-02), Zach Nunn (IA-03), and Randy Feenstra (IA-04) were part of the bipartisan majority.

When the Senate passed the bill by 76 votes to 20 shortly after midnight on December 21, Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst were among the 20 Republicans who voted no.

The Iowans’ comments on the Social Security Fairness Act illustrate how differently politicians with similar ideologies can view a complex public policy fix.

The House Majority PAC, one of the biggest spenders supporting Democrats in U.S. House races, has confirmed Iowa’s first and third Congressional districts are among its “top targets” for the 2026 election cycle.

The PAC also put IA-02 on a list of sixteen House districts that “could become competitive” in 2026.

UPDATE: Smith fleshed out his message against the incumbent in a digital ad launched on December 31. Original post follows.

Senator Joni Ernst has her first declared 2026 primary challenger. Joshua Smith announced on X/Twitter on December 5 that he plans to run against Ernst as a Republican in 2026. The “blue-collar, working-class veteran” and father of seven promised he would be “the most pro-life, pro-family, small government candidate running for a federal office” next cycle.

So far, Smith’s campaign looks more like a bid for online engagement than a serious threat to Ernst’s career. But in a December 9 telephone interview, he explained why he’s confident he can build a strong GOP primary campaign.

MAGA activists are increasingly unhappy with U.S. Senator Joni Ernst and looking for someone to run against her in Iowa’s 2026 Senate primary.

If conservatives aren’t able to stop Ernst from winning the nomination, they may have a place to park their protest votes in the general election. Libertarian Thomas Laehn again confirmed to Bleeding Heartland he’s seriously considering a Senate bid.

State Auditor Rob Sand intends to decide which office he’s running for in 2026 well before the end of next year, he confirmed during a September 30 appearance on Julie Gammack’s Iowa Potluck Zoom podcast. Sand talked mostly about his work as auditor during the interview. When Gammack opened the floor to questions, I asked about his future plans.

The only remaining Democratic statewide official in Iowa, Sand is widely perceived as a potential candidate for governor in 2026. If he runs, he could clear the Democratic field.

I raised the question of timing because Sand also considered running for higher office in 2021. He ruled out a U.S. Senate bid in May of that year but did not announce he would seek a second term as auditor until early December. Does he plan to leave other prospective candidates for governor hanging for most of 2025, or let Iowans know sooner, perhaps in the summer or early fall?

“So, I’m a human being,” Sand began. He hadn’t gone through that “complicated” and “difficult” process before the last election cycle. “And let me tell you, there’s no one who wishes I would have decided faster more than me. Maybe my wife,” he laughed.

“But it’s hard to figure it out,” Sand went on. There are personal factors to consider as well as “really important decisions” for the state and the public. Weighing his options in 2021 “was really difficult. I have now been through this once before. I think it will be easier, and I don’t think it will take as long this time.”

What might have been a slow news week in state government took an unexpected turn on September 3. Governor Kim Reynolds announced that Lieutenant Governor Adam Gregg was resigning, effective the same day. Minutes later, the Iowa Bankers Association revealed that Gregg would join the association as president and CEO, beginning on October 1.

There’s a lot to unpack here.

Greene County Attorney Thomas Laehn, who was the first Libertarian elected to partisan office in Iowa, is considering a bid for U.S. Senate in 2026.

The Thomas Laehn Exploratory Committee filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission in December, but the committee’s campaign website, Laehn4Iowa.org, was just launched in late July.

Laehn spoke to Bleeding Heartland by phone last month about why he may run for Senate and what factors will influence his decision.

“Lead us not into temptation,” State Auditor Rob Sand told some 450 Iowa Democrats on July 27. He tries to say those words every day, he explained, because the phrase has “been an important part of my life, and an important part of my faith, like it has for many other people.”

Sand’s remarks drew heavily on the language of faith to press the case against Republican policies.

The auditor is not on the ballot this November but is widely viewed as a possible candidate for governor in 2026. So while Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear was the main attraction at the Iowa Democratic Party’s Liberty and Justice Celebration in Des Moines, Sand’s six-minute speech was also notable as a preview of his next campaign—either for governor or for a third term in his current position.

“It’s time to put Donald J. Trump back in the White House and restore the future of our country for hardworking Americans!” U.S. Senator Joni Ernst posted on social media on the first day of the Republican National Convention.

Iowa’s junior senator kept busy in Milwaukee, participating in several panel discussions or events arranged by conservative groups, and praising Trump in podcast or television interviews. She appeared at some Iowa GOP functions (though she wasn’t one of our state’s RNC delegates) and honored Trump’s campaign co-manager Chris LaCivita.

But Ernst’s status has diminished since the last time her party nominated Trump for the presidency. She was among a small group of politicians passed over as RNC speakers this year, after giving prime-time addresses at both the 2016 and 2020 conventions.

A rift with team Trump could jeopardize Ernst’s hope to move up another notch in Senate leadership after the November election. It could also inspire a MAGA challenger to run in the GOP primary when the senator seeks a third term in 2026.

Douglas Burns is a fourth-generation Iowa journalist. He is the co-founder of the Western Iowa Journalism Foundation and a member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative, where this article first appeared on The Iowa Mercury newsletter. His family operated the Carroll Times Herald for 93 years in Carroll, Iowa where Burns resides.

Two-term U.S. Senator Joni Ernst, a Red Oak Republican and the first female combat veteran to serve in the Senate, said on May 29 that she will seek a third term in 2026.

In an interview in Carroll with Iowa Mercury and the Carroll Times Herald following an economic-development event, Ernst, 53, left the door open to a possible cabinet position in a second Trump administration if the former president prevails in November. Trump vetted Ernst in the 2016 cycle as a possible vice presidential running mate.

Asked directly if she planned to seek re-election to the U.S. Senate in 2026, and to rate her likelihood on a scale of 1 to 10 for a third-term bid (with 10 being most likely) Ernst said, “That is my intent. So I would say, yes, 10 very likely. I love representing the people of Iowa, and it really has been a very fulfilling position for me to be able to fight for rural America. Of course, important to me as well are our veterans and Armed Services.”

Ernst said she would wait until after the 2024 election cycle to get a “little closer” to 2026 before announcing.