Ernst’s Woes Nudge Iowa Senate from Solid to Likely Republican

To have a feasible shot at winning back the Senate majority, Democrats must put red states in play.

Democrats had already been eyeing Iowa as one of those potential pickup opportunities, believing that the state will be especially sensitive to tariff fights and trade wars, and banking on Iowa’s history of Democratic overperformance in midterm years with Donald Trump in the White House.

Now, Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst may have just given them an assist in the form of a sarcastic comment about proposed Medicaid cuts, followed by an ill-advised follow up video.

While it still remains an uphill climb for Democrats, we are shifting our rating to Likely Republican.

The now-infamous clip of Ernst’s remark was almost tailor-made for Democratic 30-second attack ads. After a town hall audience member yelled out that people could die due to losing coverage from the low-income health care program under the proposed bill that just passed the House, Ernst deadpanned that “Well, we all are going to die.”

The incident might have died down after a few news cycles, but the next day