More than a year before Iowa’s 2026 primary election, Democrats already have one announced candidate for U.S. Senate (Nathan Sage) and two officially running for the U.S. House (Travis Terrell in the first district and Kevin Techau in the second). More Democrats will launch campaigns for Iowa’s statewide and federal offices in the coming months.

So it’s a good time to preview how this website will cover the next round of Iowa Democratic primaries.

GUIDELINES FOR MY OWN REPORTING

First, I don’t plan to endorse a contender in any competitive Democratic primary. My goal is to produce in-depth reporting on the major races, with details about the candidates and the political landscape that readers may not find in other media outlets.

Second, my coverage will focus on candidates with the capacity to run a credible statewide or district-wide campaign. I don’t mean just front-runners; plenty of little-known candidates have built a following and eventually won the nomination for a major office. I mean that when deciding where to spend my time and energy on individual candidate profiles or surveys of the primary field, I will be looking for signs that a candidate is doing the work this kind of campaign requires.

“The working class has been working their ass off every day to survive and make ends meet for their families,” Nathan Sage told me this week. Making working people’s lives better is the driving force of his U.S. Senate campaign.

At least four Democrats are thinking seriously about running against two-term Republican incumbent Joni Ernst. Sage was the first to make it official, on April 16.

Sage discussed his background, beliefs, and reasons for running in an interview with Bleeding Heartland the day before his campaign launch. The full video of our exchange is at the end of this post.

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.

Many politicians can persuade you to believe in them. That’s a commonly reached feat. But the defining leaders, elected officials like Tom Harkin, Robert Ray, Henry Wallace, and Harold Hughes, are able to summon the inspiration to get Iowans believing in themselves, their own worth and futures.

More than any other contemporary active Democrat, State Representative Josh Turek has the potential to earn the mantle in the ongoing—and now desperately needed—legacy those Iowans with surpassing public-mindedness built.

We are in an era in the United States that can be described as The Great Deconstruction. We are broken. The anger in the streets at “Hands Off!” protests and in other arenas, in real life and online, is fierce and urgent. Soon, and at a more accelerated political pace than is traditional, Democrats will begin vetting candidates for the U.S. Senate race in 2026, a contest with the politically formidable Joni Ernst. The two-term Republican senator has a rare cultural connectivity; her journey as a farm girl and combat veteran carries enormous appeal across the state.

Dave Price had the scoop for Gray Media on March 28: State Senator Zach Wahls is “certainly listening” to those who have encouraged him to run for U.S. Senate in 2026.

Wahls is the first Democrat to publicly express interest in this race. Two-term Senator Joni Ernst has not formally launched her re-election campaign but is widely expected to seek a third term.

Wahls told Price he will decide whether to run for higher office after the Iowa legislative session. But he’s already criticizing Ernst, most recently in a March 26 news release that tied the senator to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s “reckless mishandling of military plans” in a Signal group chat.

“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.

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.

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.

“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.