Johnny Ernst wins Iowa, frustrated Democrats push for Senate majority

DES MOINS – Iowa Republican Senator Johnny Ernst won re-election Tuesday, accelerating the party’s efforts to save its Senate majority by overcoming a serious and well-funded Democratic challenge and a pocket of dissatisfaction with President Trump’s victory.

According to the Associated Press, the only woman on Senator Mitch McConnell’s leadership team is Ms. Ernst defeated Theresa Greenfield, 57, in one of the most expensive Senate races in American history.

As the Senate’s future slipped into balance, more than 3 233 million from across the country fell into the race – with expenses equally shared between supporters of both candidates.

Winning Mr. Ernst’s status as one of the highest-ranking women in Republican politics helped shape the party’s tenure for at least the next six years.

Christopher W., professor of political science at the University of Northern Iowa. “It’s now part of Iowa politics for the foreseeable future,” Larmimer said. “The first re-election bid is always difficult. Once senators are elected for the first time, it’s really hard to beat them. ”

Mrs. Ernst has been a smasher of glass ceilings as the first woman combatant to be elected to the Senate and the first woman to represent Iowa in Congress. But she faced a tug-of-war for her second term, in which within a year voters also rallied around Mr. Trump in his rugged state and rallied around the Affordable Care Act – and for pre-existing conditions. Defense – which Republicans pushed to repeal repeatedly.

So Ms. Ernst renewed himself. During her first Senate campaign in 2001, Ms. Ernst ran an ad in which he appeared on the range of the gun, shooting at the target as a spokesman saying he would “unload” on Obamacare. This year, she took a softer approach, she will run an ad featuring her sister, who has diabetes, in which the senator promised to fight for the protection of people with pre-existing conditions.

When New York Democrat and minority leader Senator Chuck Schumer forced a recent vote to ban the Trump administration from arguing in court to overturn health care laws, Mrs. Ernst broke with her party to vote with Democrats. She repeatedly apologized for commenting in which she accepted a debunked theory questioning the number of people who died from the coronavirus.

At times, his struggles reflected other 2014 Republican class stars – including Colorado Senators Corey Gardner, Montana’s Steve Dines, Alaska’s Dan Sullivan, and Georgia’s David Perdue – who were once seen as promising new leaders. Pay generation in the party, but they were seen fighting on Tuesday to keep their seats. (Mr. Gardner loses John Hicknlooper’s seat on Tuesday.)

Ms. Ernst entered the Senate in 2014 with a hilarious ad titled “Make ’em Squall, in which she promised to be as ruthless as cutting down on the wasteful spending of pigs on her family’s farm.

As a member of the Senate, she spoke powerfully to avoid rape and domestic abuse.

Skilled Ernst and Ms. Greenfield was locked in a virtual tie in the final weekend of the campaign, with Mrs. Ernst turning to victory in 2014 and 2016, when Mr. Trump tightened the voting race with Mr.-Trump. Iowa has carried more than nine percentage points.

In a survey conducted by the Des Moines Register in the final days of the race, Ms. Ernst was shown with a four-point lead.

Kelly Koch, a Republican and Dallas County healthcare professional who attended Mrs. Ernst’s rally at Iowa State Fairgrounds on Monday, said the individual rallies made a big difference in the final week of the campaign.

Ms. “People were hiding everything,” Koch said. “These freedom rallies have been a catalyst.”

When Ms. Ernst occasionally parted ways with the president – he opposed Mr. Trump’s tariffs, for example, and supported removing the names of Confederate military leaders from military bases – she accepted them in general.

On the trail of the expedition, Ms. Ernst promoted his relationship with Mr. Trump as an advantage for Iowans. He said it forced him to invest in renewable fuel infrastructure in Iowa to boost ethanol sales and, more recently, when Mr. Trump asked his administration to come back from negotiations on additional stimulus money for the economy, urged him in a phone call to reconsider. .

In the final week of the campaign, another Iowa senator, Charles E. Grassley, a Republican who was first elected to her seat in 1980, emerged as Mrs. Ernst’s biggest cheerleader, promoting frequent stumpings for her and her speeches on social media.

A member of the Judiciary Committee, he used Mr. Trump’s election-season pressure to convince Justice Amy Connie Barrett in the Supreme Court of his advantage, calculating that the fight would motivate money changers and lead them to a vote of support. During the hearing, she praised the achievements of the nominee as a conservative woman who grew up in the top continents of her field, and argued – in comments that seemed as much about herself as a judge – that women were often fired. Political realm.

However, those who showed up to lose the election with women and independents in the polls, Ms. Ernst also worked to allay concerns that Justice Barrett could overturn examples of crucial abortion-rights, pointing out that she once upheld the legitimacy of the surrounding protest buffer zone. Abortion Clinic.

“I think the chances of overthrowing Rowe v. Wade are very slim,” Ms. Ernst said. “I don’t see that happening.”