Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa will not seek re-election, according to a CBS News report.
The decision would end months of lobbying and speculation from her Republican colleagues and giving Democrats a clear opening to put the upper chamber of Congress in play. Ernst has not publicly commented on the matter. CBS reported that Ernst will make an official announcement next week, citing multiple sources familiar with her thinking.
Her retirement gives Democrats an opportunity to pick up a seat in a red-purple state and narrow the GOP’s majority. Other seats in Ohio, Maine, and North Carolina are also being eyed as potential pickups, though Republicans are still heavily favored to retain control of the chamber come 2027.
The Independent has reached out for comment. The senator’s last tweet on her campaign account, from three days ago, recognized “national dog day”.
Ernst was first elected to the Senate in 2014, during the Tea Party wave that accompanied Barack Obama’s second term. Since then, she’s watched her state trend further and further red, and in 2024 Donald Trump won the largest share of votes of any Republican presidential contender in Iowa in decades.
But Republicans just lost their supermajority in the Iowa state senate, following an upset victory by a Democrat earlier this year. And the likelihood that Trump himself has run his last race means that the GOP will no longer have his magnetic presence at the top of the ticket going forward.
Two Democrats have already announced campaigns for Ernst’s seat, though that number could grow now that the incumbent will not be a factor. Nathan Sage, a Marine vet and mechanic, is leading in fundraising at the moment.
“[Joni] Ernst is bowing out of this race, because she knows what we’ve known for a long time — Iowa is WINNABLE!” tweeted the Sage campaign after the news broke Friday.
“We’re the only campaign offering real change after decades of failed leadership from both parties, but we can’t do it without you,” the statement continued.
Zach Wahls, another member of the Iowa state senate and Sage’s competitor in the primary for Ernst’s seat, released a video on X vowing that the Republican incumbent would be unseated in she same manner after Tuesday’s big win for Democrats.
“We are going to flip this U.S. Senate seat the exact same way that Catelin Drey flipped her state Senate seat,” he vowed.
Taking control of one or both chambers of Congress next year would allow Democrats to effectively halt Donald Trump’s legislative agenda for the remainder of his term. It would also allow Democrats to wield the power of Congress’s committees, particularly the investigative powers that would allow members to probe initiatives like Elon Musk’s DOGE office and the Trump-directed federal occupation of Washington, D.C.
It would also give Democrats momentum heading into 2028, when the party hopes to retake control of the White House.
This is a breaking story. More to follow…
