Why Democrats think they can win back Iowa from Trump

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. The CIA has been carrying out covert operations around the world for decades. How has it shaped how people feel about the US? I'm Asma Khalid. And I'm Tristan Redman. And together we host the Global Story podcast from the BBC. As part of our series to mark the United States' 250th birthday, we're exploring the CIA's hidden history. Do you think the word of the United States will be trusted in years to come? For more, check out The Global Story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, it's Justin and you're about to hear AmeriCast.

0:40We are delighted to have you with us and if you enjoy what you hear, please do consider subscribing to the podcast. That way you'll never miss an episode. Now, on with today. Today we're asking whether Democrats could actually win in Iowa, a red state that Donald Trump's Republicans have been dominating for more than the last decade. But there's real optimism among Democrats after last night's primaries for both the Senate and the governor's race. They've got a wealthy pro-hunting candidate for governor who's facing a Republican pick who's not the one that Donald Trump endorsed. And then look at the Senate.

1:14You've got a Democrat who's a Paralympian backed by the whole establishment wing of the party. So are Democrats right to get their hopes up about Iowa? Welcome to AmeriCast.

1:54Hello, it's Sarah in the BBC's Washington Bureau. And it's Anthony right here with Sarah in Washington, D.C. And it's Justin in the worldwide headquarters of AmeriCast in London, England. And I should say before we start, it is just coming up to three o 'clock in the afternoon on Wednesday in London. And that matters, of course, particularly this time round, because we're going to be talking about election results that are not necessarily fully in. But I think we can be pretty confident about what we're saying all the same. And what we're saying, guys, is just fascinating, isn't it? because we're going to be talking mainly about a rural state and Democratic Party successes in that rural state and also potential big pitfalls, setbacks for Donald Trump in that rural state.

2:34And this really matters and it matters in the state we're talking about, which is Iowa. But it matters more widely as well, doesn't it? Yeah, because it is going to be the key for Democrats in these midterm elections. Iowa has a Senate race that is currently leaning towards Republicans. But if Democrats could flip that seat that's held by Joni Ernst, who is retiring, they could be one step closer, as we discussed in the past, to taking control of the Senate. There is also a governor's race there. Iowa, we talk about Iowa, and I think we all know and are familiar with Iowa more than most typical Midwestern states because it has had a traditional position as one of the early states determining who a presidential nominee is going to be.

3:15So governor of Iowa actually makes a difference in that contest, as well as if Iowa does become more of a battleground state in 2028. Whoever the party is that controls the governorship might have a little more influence in helping their candidate to win that state. Yeah. And I mean, Donald Trump is popular there. He won it three times, 2016, 2020, 2024. And so even though he lost the election across the country in 2020. And so it is perceived largely as a Republican state now. But Democrats have won in living memory, in my living memory, haven't they, Anthony? I mean, it's not one of the deepest red states in the country.

3:49Right. Barack Obama carried Iowa in 2012. I think the last time that Iowa went Democratic in the Senate race was 2008. It's not like Texas where we were talking about half a century of Republican control. It does have a history of swinging sometimes to the Democrats. And the Democrats in 2018 actually picked up three of the four House seats there. So also, you know, they have they have a hope. And I think that part of the reason why they have a hope now is because of unique things that are going on in the American Midwest with farmers and unique things that are going on in Iowa. Yeah. And the farmers are fascinating because they broke really big across the Midwest for Donald Trump and are suffering quite particularly from the war in Iran, because not only has the price of fuel gone up, the price of fertilizer has gone up as well.

4:37There have been issues with Trump's trade tariffs also hurting the farming sector. They've had a little bit of a bailout, but probably not as much as they feel that they deserve. So watching what happens with that vote is going to be really interesting, Justin. And just to sort of widen the lens for a second again, before we focus again on who the candidates are who've done well. And it is really interesting, actually, the kind of candidates really matter. And we'll get to that in a second. Just sort of big picture. Yes, it's not Texas, Iowa, when it comes to the Democrats being completely out of the race in recent years.

5:10But it is still the case, isn't it, that one of the really striking things, you look back to 2008 and Anthony says Obama won as well in 2012. But actually, you know, in the years since then, it's been one of those places that has just leached away from the Democrats. And the thing that really is striking to me is that they have lost interest in it. And what really interests me is if a combination of Donald Trump messing up and messing things up for the Republicans and the Democrats suddenly themselves thinking, oh, actually quite like farmers. That, it seems to me, is seismic. Yeah. Donald Trump won Iowa in 2024 by 13 points.

5:50But to capture the way this may be swinging, there was a poll recently, a YouGov Economist poll that showed that Donald Trump had a net 20 negative approval rating in Iowa. It makes it one of the states where he is, you know, particularly unpopular. And, you know, obviously we can we can say polls are polls. And if you remember, Justin, we talked about an Iowa poll that showed Kamala Harris winning that state right before the election in November. Maybe we talked about it too much. Yeah. So, I mean, you can only you have to take polls with a grain of salt. But I think those polls and the results we saw in Iowa on Tuesday night in these primaries, I think those are all data points for what could be trouble for Donald Trump in America's heartland.

6:39Obviously, we're wary of polls and all predictions. But Anthony, there's a couple of groups that look in great detail at different races, aren't they? And don't necessarily predict the winner, but they sort of give predictions as to whether it heavily looks like it's going Republican slightly or looks like a toss up. And they have moved. I mean, the Cook Political Report we've mentioned before, very, very well respected. And they've shifted the rating for Iowa's governor's race from lean Republican to toss up. And there's others, aren't there, that people really watch quite closely for their predictions.

7:10Larry Sabadeau, who's a University of Virginia professor who runs a crystal ball. It's a whole organization that they have within the university that does these predictions. They also moved the governor's race from leans Republican to toss up. And both Cook and Sabato also moved that Senate race from solidly Republican to leans Republican. So that's still not a total toss up. But it's one of those races that we've talked about on the margins that if Democrats could put in play, it gives them a shot at winning the four seats they would need out of the 33, 34 that are up for grabs in the Senate in November to take control of that chamber back.

7:51Yeah. And worth noting, the Wall Street Journal called Rob Sand, who is the Democratic candidate for governor, easily the strongest contender his party could have recruited. And Justin, it's almost as though they have been listening to you and your appeal for the Democrats to run centrist candidates who don't focus on cultural issues, who haven't said things about transgender or anything else that could become hostages to fortune. If you could put together a sort of identikit candidate to persuade the good folks of Iowa to vote Democrat, it's probably Rob Sand, isn't it? Yeah. So he's the state auditor, isn't he?

8:26So he is already a guy who holds statewide office in Iowa. The only Democrat. The only one. Yeah, the only one. And hugely unusual. He has two handguns. Now, I'm not endorsing, Sarah, the ownership of handguns, but I am saying that if you're in a place like this and you own handguns and you're a Democrat, you're immediately saying something to people. And it's exactly as Sarah says, it's this ability to signal. It is not that progressives cannot win in other parts of America. Indeed, very, very obviously they can. And the progressive left message can be hugely successful. But what the party's done in recent times, it seemed to me, and I've said this a number of times, is that they've not allowed those who are not progressive to be selected in places where the other message is a good one.

9:16And this guy is the other message and they've got in there. He quotes from the Bible. He's got it all exactly as Sarah says. He's a bow hunter as well. And that takes some real skill. So that's proper Midwestern stuff, isn't it? Anybody can pick up a handgun. takes something to be able to kill livestock with a bow. And they go and do it early in the morning too. I've done bow hunting in Iowa. I mean, we've all got Iowa stories, but one of my kind of main memories of Iowa is going out early in the morning at first light with bow hunters. And it's a really big deal there. And it's a kind of deal that just interests local people.

9:54It's a local pursuit. And if you actually genuinely do it rather than pretending to do it, then you're really in with people. And that's why this guy is such a strong candidate, which he genuinely is, isn't he? Yeah, and his office on the Capitol in Iowa has mounted taxidermy heads of animals that he's killed. His slogan is governor for all. So he is making a kind of a centrist pitch to disaffected Republicans. His yard signs are green, not kind of the Democratic blue. So he's the kind of person that you might imagine has a fighting chance to take advantage of divisions on the Republican side.

10:36Yeah, and along the same lines, he starts his rallies by having the audience sing America the Beautiful. And he's actually posted a campaign video. We should listen to a bit of it. This is a compilation of people singing that song. I want to do one simple thing to just get us all together and remember that actually we can work together to make something nice. And that is sing the first verse of America the Beautiful.

11:01For spacious skies, for amber waves of rain, for purple mountains and... Oh, Anthony's going to be welling up now. I know. Can you sing the first stanza of America the Beautiful Justin? Did you ever get that ingrained in your head while you were here? No, I wish I could actually. I'm not even sure my daughter can, but I'll test her on it and get back to you. Now, Sanders, you mentioned Anthony, does describe himself as a governor for all. And he's actually picked a trademark slogan where he says it's not redder or bluer, it's better and truer. You want to know what real change looks like? How about a campaign for governor that has over 1000 donors from the opposite political party?

11:50This campaign is bigger than being Democrats or Republicans. It's not redder or bluer, it's better and truer. And people are responding. People are coming together in a way that considering how divided we are these days feels really meaningful. So I hope you'll join us. Thanks. So all these donations from Republicans. He's also got a lot of donations from people a little closer to him, over a million dollars from his wife and in-laws, which has helped him capture the Democratic nomination. In fact, he ran unopposed. The whole party kind of rallied around him. he has the ability to fund himself in a state where it's not all that expensive to run for statewide office.

12:29So it makes him a formidable candidate. Yeah. And it's interesting, isn't it, when we talk all the time about how polarized American politics is, how nobody will even consider the arguments of the other side. And far fewer people, it seems, are switching their votes between Republican and Democrat to have somebody who's appealing straight down the middle like that and saying that he can he can bridge these divides. So, I mean, it's an interesting model for other candidates across the country. And it's a model, just to emphasise this case, it's a model that they used to follow. You think of Brian Schweitzer.

13:00I don't know if either of you ever came across him when he was governor of Montana. I spent a memorable day with him. Gosh, it must have been in, well, I suppose in the early 2000s, which is when he was governor of Montana. But he had these lines, these kind of stock lines, like, I think gun control is hitting what you shoot at. And all these kind of things that were just a completely flew in the face of the norms in the Democratic Party. And yet he was, you know, pretty successful and very popular, at least for a time, Democratic governor. So they're in a sense with this guy, with Sand, they're going back to a model that's worked in the past, aren't they?

13:35Yeah, I think that one of the things that Democrats have been trying to do this time around in this midterm is run candidates who appeal to the place that they're from. And so, You run Mamdani in New York City, but you run Abigail Spanberger in Virginia, who campaigned as a centrist and has been governing as a centrist, much to the dismay of some Democrats. So it is it is the kind of formula that that helps when you're not in power and you don't have to establish some sort of a national policy. The question then is, you know, in 2028, when the party has to determine who they are as a national party, then you have a bunch of different people all kind of pulling in different directions.

14:18But for midterms in November and in this place, Iowa, he seems like he is the kind of guy who's the right fit. So let's look at his opponent, the Republican candidate who won the primary. Now, we'll get to the details about him, what he's running on. But Zach Lane, businessman and farmer, who's never run for office before, is particularly interesting because he beat a sitting congressman who had been endorsed by Donald Trump. And we've talked on the podcast about the other primaries we've had this year already and the way in which Trump candidates have all won, have all stormed to the front off the back of Donald Trump's endorsement.

14:55Here is our first glimpse that he doesn't have the vice-like grip on the Republican Party that we've been talking about before, because Zach Lane was not his preferred choice, and yet he went on and won. So why, Anthony? Well, we talked about last week Donald Trump being able to pick people and throw his endorsements behind and push them over the top, including in ousting incumbent Republicans who had found disfavor with Trump. But this time around, yeah, Trump threw his weight behind Feenstra, the incumbent congressman, three-term congressman who had been a loyal Trump supporter in the House of Representatives.

15:33And that wasn't enough. Now, part of it was the endorsement came just in the last week. Feenstra didn't even have time to go up on it with a television ad touting that endorsement. But the base in Iowa, conservatives, evangelicals in particular, they weren't sold on Feenstra. They found him as too establishment, too centrist. And so they backed a couple of different candidates. But the one who ended up winning was Zach Lon, who had endorsements from Charlie Kirk's old group, Turning Point USA, had endorsements for the Make America Healthy Again group. He campaigned on making Iowa healthy again.

16:13And he campaigned on Iowa First, which sounds a little bit like America First and limiting foreign and out-of-state ownership of Iowa farms. So he ran to the right, I guess, of Feenstra, which, you know, he out-Trumped the candidate that Trump endorsed. Yeah, that's fascinating. And Justin, you can probably hear he is so little known on the national stage that I call him Zach Lane. Anthony's calling him Zach Lan. It is spelled L-A-H-N. I think you're right. and so we will find out. I think it's Lane and the only reason I think it's Lane is I've actually listened to the guy's adverts and it definitely says Lane at the end but when he eventually runs for the presidency we'll have sorted it out.

16:55In the meantime actually why don't we listen to him talking of his adverts let's listen to his victory speech because there's a load of things you just brought up Anthony that I think are just fascinating about the message that he has and where he's running from as well. This isn't just as simple as, oh, the non-Trump candidate has won. Chalk this up to, I don't know, sort of country club Republicans finally winning one. This isn't that at all. It's more interesting than that in a way. But let's listen to the guy himself. Here he is. I fear every day we are losing the Iowa we love. We've lost 10 ,000 family farms since 2000.

17:30Our young people are leaving faster than 46 other states because they don't see enough opportunity here. Wall Street hedge funds and foreign interests are buying and selling our land, driving up costs so our kids are priced out of the market. They treat Iowa land like it's a commodity instead of our inheritance. They treat us like numbers, not neighbors. On the front steps of our farmhouse, many of you were here. When I announced my campaign, I made it very clear as governor, I will take on the big ag cartels, I will break up their monopolies, and I will get Iowa farmers a fair deal. Yeah, that's really fascinating, right?

18:11An anti-establishment, anti-outsider campaign that does sound a bit like some of Trump's themes that he's run on for the past decade. And I think you're right, sir. I think that Trump probably looked and saw Feenstra. Oh, he's an incumbent congressman. He's been able to win there. He had been up in the polls, generally viewed as the front runner and the likely nominee. I mean, if you believe in these things, the betting markets had him like a 70 % or 80 % chance of winning when Donald Trump endorsed him. And on the ground, it was a different story. And on the ground, there are people who are not all that thrilled with the way things are going in Iowa, aren't all that thrilled with some of Donald Trump's policies, to be quite honest.

18:54His tariffs and the way that China responded to the tariffs by stopping purchase of Iowa agricultural goods, That really hit farmers hard. And then the Iran war by raising the price of energy, by raising the price of fertilizer for all of these farms in Iowa. That's been a double punch that has really hit them. And so just because Donald Trump says jump and this is the guy, it seems like there was and we're talking about a few thousand plus votes. This was a small sample size because not many people vote in Republican primaries. But still, they didn't fall in line behind Donald Trump's pick the way we've seen in other places.

19:33Donald Trump obviously knows he's in trouble with the farming community, even before he saw this result, because he's making one of his rare visits outside of Washington to go and talk to voters at a campaign event. And it's farmers he's going to see in Wisconsin on Friday. So, yeah, I think if you needed extra reminding, this is the fact that, yeah, that is one community that needs to be heavily courted, I think, by Donald Trump if they're not going to desert him in their droves. But what interests me is it's not just the farmers, is it? One of you mentioned that he was endorsed by Make America Healthy Again or by their pack or super pack, the money.

20:08That fascinates me. Because if you think of Make America Healthy Again, the Maha movement. So this is Robert Kennedy Jr. and his people. it's very much focused on healthy eating etc but it's also got a kind of tinge to put it mildly of anti-vax hasn't it certainly anti-big pharma very based outside the mainstream edgy etc etc etc and until recently i think it's fair to say isn't it pretty pretty trump adjacent and so this is yet another split isn't it so you could talk about the farmers splitting off those who were and lots of and were keen Trump supporters, but the Maha movement as well. What's going on where suddenly they are also outside the tent?

20:54During the Iowa caucuses at the beginning of 2024, I was there covering the race, you know, Trump running against Rhonda Santis and all of the other candidates and spoke to lots of voters and families who turned up at their rallies. And I've kept in touch with a few of them to say, how do they feel now? People who then decided they were going to vote for Donald Trump in the primary, who enthusiastically voted for him in the general election in November 2024. Every few months, I just give them a ring and have a chat about what they think is going on in the country and how happy or not they are about it.

21:26And a couple of the mothers particularly are really, really maha. And they will say they were upset about trade tariffs and worried about what it was going to do to inflation. They're not happy about the war in Iran. They're certainly not happy about what that's done to the cost of living. But they are so invested in Maha in some of the ideas about getting additives out of food and changing Americans' diets. And that feels to them much closer to their kitchen table, to their families than a lot of the big policy things that we talk about all the time. That I would say they're probably more invested in Maha than they are in MAGA, no matter how MAGA they seemed in 2024.

22:01That's really interesting. I mean, it is exactly, as you suggest, kind of splintering, isn't it? the potential splintering of a coalition that's been enormously powerful for Donald Trump. It's pretty obvious, isn't it? But now could equally go in any direction. And it's a reminder, isn't it, that people saw Donald Trump as a vessel for putting their own views on what should happen into reality. In other words, they wanted him. You think back to the anti-abortion movement and what they wanted from Trump in his first term and the picking of the Supreme Court justices that would get rid of Roe v.

22:36Wade, etc. People have used him for various reasons at various times, but they have not necessarily ever been as committed to him as a person as sometimes I think it is suggested in the media. And that seems to me to be coming true now. Right. As we talked about at the top, there's another statewide race, an open seat, the Senate race in Iowa. And in that race, the Trump-backed candidate cruised to victory. Ashley Hinson, who also is a member of Congress representing Iowa, she ran and won by a comfortable margin. So the interest in that, the Senate primaries for Iowa, is actually on the Democratic side because there was a contest.

23:22There was a contest between someone who was a more kind of progressive candidate and one who had been backed by establishment Democrats, including Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader. And it was that candidate, the establishment-backed centrist, who won. His name is Josh Turek. He's a two-time Paralympic gold medalist in a wheelchair. He has spinal bifida because his father, who fought in the Vietnam War, was exposed to Agent Orange. He's a state legislator now, and he won, defeating another state legislator. He had endured 21 surgeries since the age of 12. So he's got a compelling personal narrative.

24:03He's running also as a centrist. And he had campaign videos where it showed him getting out and talking to people in his wheelchair and then getting out and dragging his wheelchair up the steps to get around, to knock on front doors. I mean, it was a pretty powerful moment. Well, Josh, tell us, how'd you win that House seat when no one said that was possible? The blueprint is hard work, grit, and determination. I went out every single day crawling those stairs, knocking doors, dragging my wheelchair up, having face-to-face conversations with Republicans, with independents, with Democrats. It did not matter to party.

24:40The very first thing they would say is, how in the world did you get up here? And I would say, I crawled up here. I drove my wheelchair up here. That's how important it is to have a conversation with you. Talk about red states and red districts and red Senate seats turning blue. Look no further than Iowa. The big thing about this guy, Josh Tchurek, is not only, as you say, he's got an amazing kind of resume and this kind of real sense about him of being special and interesting that comes from the fact that he has to cope with all these physical difficulties to do the job. But number two, he is, I mean, again, to go back to this thing of picking horses for courses, as it were.

25:19So there was a progressive left candidate who ran against him, and that's fine. But the party in the end made the choice of him for the obvious reason, it seems to me, that he would be much more likely to win the Senate seat than the progressive left candidate. So he was endorsed, wasn't he, by the party leadership. Bit of a rare victory for the party leadership, for Chuck Schumer and the rest of them. They're battered about all the time now until they're useless and they don't fight Donald Trump enough, etc., etc. But Bernie Sanders and all the progressives went for the other candidate and lost.