The governor still hasn’t made a decision whether to sign the eminent domain bill, so not much to discuss concerning the state government this week. We focused mainly on the recent candidate announcement for US Senate on this week’s show (editor’s note Dave mentions at the top we’ll be discussing the governor’s race announcements as well but we spent too much time on the senate and we wanted to get Kathie’s Minnesota story in. We’ll go in depth on the governor’s race next week). The biggest political news in the state started last Friday with Sen. Joni Ernst’s “We all are going to die” response to a constituent’s statement during a town hall in Parkersburg. The senator also announced the hiring of a campaign manager for her 2026 reelection bid. We dive in to what it all means; Former Republican State Senator Jim Carlin announced early Friday that he will seek the US Senate nomination for his party, and it appears he’ll try attacking Ernst from the right in the primary; Ernst’s controversy encouraged Democratic State Rep. J.D. Scholten to enter the US Senate race earlier than he may have planned. We discuss his credentials and early campaign; Kathie is in Minnesota with some of her States Newsroom colleagues and they had Governor Tim Walz as a guest Thursday so she shares a report from that event. Hope you have an enjoyable weekend, we’ll see you next week!
AI generated transcript (I wish I could teach it to spell Kathie’s name right every time)
(00:00:01):
Hi,
(00:00:01):
everyone,
(00:00:01):
and welcome back to the Iowa Down Ballot podcast,
(00:00:05):
a production of the Iowa Writers Collaborative.
(00:00:07):
I am Dave Price.
(00:00:08):
I write Dave Price's perspective.
(00:00:10):
Joined, as always, this week, Kathie Obradovich and Laura Belin.
(00:00:15):
Hello, ladies.
(00:00:17):
Hello.
(00:00:17):
Good to be here.
(00:00:19):
Kathie, are we allowed to say you're on the road?
(00:00:21):
Yeah, if you notice the background, it's a hotel room in Minneapolis.
(00:00:25):
So I'm hitting the road as soon as we're done here to drive back to Iowa.
(00:00:30):
But I've been with all of my fellow editors from the State's Newsroom Network this week.
(00:00:36):
So it's been an interesting week.
(00:00:42):
And you'll have a nugget to share about...
(00:00:45):
A VIP speaker.
(00:00:47):
Yeah, we have a special guest.
(00:00:49):
So I'll be happy to tell you.
(00:00:52):
I thought this week.
(00:00:54):
Well,
(00:00:55):
we have had some bill signings and such this week by the governor,
(00:00:59):
still not the eminent domain one.
(00:01:01):
We'll see when that thing happens.
(00:01:03):
But since we had so many announcements this week,
(00:01:05):
I thought maybe we should catch up a little bit on where things stand.
(00:01:10):
And we are recording this on Friday morning and just a couple hours before we all gathered here.
(00:01:18):
We got another new candidate.
(00:01:21):
So we'll work Jim Carlin into our conversation as well.
(00:01:24):
But we'll primarily focus on the US Senate race and the governor race.
(00:01:29):
And all of these are interesting to me in their own unique ways.
(00:01:33):
But since the Jim Carlin thing is the new one, maybe let's start with the newest one.
(00:01:39):
Let's start with the US Senate race.
(00:01:42):
I am curious, first of all, ladies,
(00:01:47):
What is going on with Joni Ernst?
(00:01:49):
And let me set it up this way.
(00:01:51):
Obviously,
(00:01:52):
we're going to have to backtrack and look at what she said last Friday,
(00:01:56):
follow that up with what she said the day after,
(00:01:59):
and then even into this week as well.
(00:02:01):
And we will try to have this discussion before we all die.
(00:02:06):
And we're going to talk about whether that comment had staying power here too.
(00:02:10):
Before we get on all of that goodness, I am curious what you're reporting...
(00:02:17):
and your sources have been telling you for a while.
(00:02:20):
I have a couple of pretty usually reliable Republican sources who led me to believe
(00:02:28):
that Joni Ernst was not going to run for re-election.
(00:02:32):
And as Laura helped remind me, Senator Ernst
(00:02:39):
when she was in a debate in 2014,
(00:02:42):
when she was in that crowded Republican primary debate,
(00:02:45):
when she ran for the first time,
(00:02:47):
during a debate on Iowa PBS,
(00:02:50):
she followed Matt Whitaker,
(00:02:51):
who was right before her,
(00:02:52):
and she said that 12 years would be what she wanted to spend in the Senate.
(00:02:57):
In other words, two terms.
(00:02:59):
It appears there hasn't been a big hoopla announcement,
(00:03:04):
a rally,
(00:03:06):
whatever,
(00:03:06):
a tweet,
(00:03:08):
whatever,
(00:03:08):
however you wanna do it,
(00:03:10):
to say that she is formally running for reelection,
(00:03:12):
but she did announce,
(00:03:13):
the campaign did announce that they have a campaign manager.
(00:03:17):
So you would assume this would mean that she's running for reelection.
(00:03:22):
And I'm trying to figure out what this all means because it was sounding like she
(00:03:28):
wasn't going to.
(00:03:29):
I was led to believe she's going to do something else.
(00:03:33):
And that was why the Roast and Ride was delayed.
(00:03:36):
We weren't hearing any news on that.
(00:03:38):
Now,
(00:03:39):
within the last couple of weeks,
(00:03:40):
they've announced it's going to be in October,
(00:03:41):
which is later than normal.
(00:03:44):
Two years ago,
(00:03:44):
I remember specifically it was on June 6th because that was my last day at my
(00:03:48):
former TV employer.
(00:03:50):
And it was also a year away from the...
(00:03:52):
about a year away from the primary so that date kind of sticks in my head so I knew
(00:03:55):
that it was earlier before anyway sorry there's a super long wind up here but I
(00:04:01):
think that probably gives you a sense into my confusion in my head because I was
(00:04:05):
hearing some pretty prominent voices who did not believe she was going to run again
(00:04:09):
and it looks like at least at this point she's running again
(00:04:12):
Any thoughts?
(00:04:14):
Yeah, I would say it looks that way.
(00:04:15):
I mean, you announced the hiring of a campaign manager.
(00:04:19):
You don't do that unless you're planning to run.
(00:04:23):
At my guess,
(00:04:24):
and I can only speculate about this,
(00:04:26):
but my guess is that Joni took a while to think about whether she was going to run.
(00:04:34):
And that, you know, she is...
(00:04:39):
you know,
(00:04:39):
had been,
(00:04:40):
you know,
(00:04:40):
kind of on the on the outs with the Trump administration as she publicly kind of
(00:04:48):
wavered on the Pete Hegseth nomination for secretary of defense.
(00:04:53):
I think she probably is surprised as anyone that there wasn't a mega Republican who
(00:05:02):
has popped up to run against her at this point.
(00:05:05):
And so and I think,
(00:05:09):
frankly,
(00:05:10):
that as we'll talk about her very odd non apology to her comment about we're all
(00:05:18):
going to die.
(00:05:19):
was probably for an audience of one,
(00:05:23):
trying to persuade Donald Trump not to endorse somebody against her.
(00:05:27):
So I think after that, the non-apology, I thought, well, she must be running.
(00:05:35):
But yeah, I think for whatever reason, she took a while to think about whether she was going to
(00:05:43):
Well,
(00:05:44):
last year she told Doug Burns and a few other reporters that she was likely going
(00:05:49):
to run for a third time.
(00:05:51):
Right.
(00:05:51):
That was before Trump won the election.
(00:05:54):
So then,
(00:05:55):
I mean,
(00:05:55):
I did hear speculation this year that maybe she was holding out to try to get a
(00:05:58):
Trump administration job and maybe the delay in announcing the Roaston ride,
(00:06:03):
which,
(00:06:04):
as you said,
(00:06:04):
Dave,
(00:06:05):
normally happens in June.
(00:06:06):
This year is happening in October.
(00:06:08):
Maybe when SignalGate blew up, you know, there were questions about maybe Trump might
(00:06:13):
ditch Pete Hegseth, and who knows, maybe she wanted to keep the door open.
(00:06:17):
I would add, though, I think she's going to run.
(00:06:19):
I've always felt that she's going to run,
(00:06:21):
but Kim Reynolds had already hired a campaign manager,
(00:06:25):
and I think even a finance director,
(00:06:27):
and she then suddenly decided not to run.
(00:06:30):
So I don't, who knows, but I expect that Senator Ernst will seek a third term.
(00:06:36):
I agree.
(00:06:36):
To me, when I saw that non-apology video, I thought, oh yeah, she wants to make sure that
(00:06:42):
she's showing Trump that you never apologize and you never show weakness.
(00:06:45):
Although I know people who interpreted it the other way,
(00:06:48):
like the fact that she didn't try to clean up that mess that suggested to them that
(00:06:53):
maybe she's looking for another option and that maybe she doesn't care because when
(00:06:58):
you're in the middle of a national firestorm like that,
(00:07:01):
normally you would try to diffuse it instead of then pushing the story further.
(00:07:08):
I appreciate what you said there because
(00:07:12):
I'm with you on,
(00:07:13):
after what we just watched with Governor Reynolds,
(00:07:17):
just because you say,
(00:07:18):
and I have no firsthand knowledge,
(00:07:20):
I haven't sat down with Senator Ernst in a long time,
(00:07:23):
so we haven't had an in-depth talk about this.
(00:07:25):
So this is just pure speculation,
(00:07:28):
but since we just went through this thing with Governor Reynolds,
(00:07:32):
just because they're running at one point doesn't mean that they will be later.
(00:07:37):
Something can clearly change.
(00:07:38):
Maybe Senator Ernst finds something else she wants to do more or what have you or
(00:07:42):
doesn't like the way things are going or whatever.
(00:07:45):
I have no idea, so it's just conjecture, but I think that's a worthy point to emphasize that
(00:07:52):
She's whatever she's doing right now may not be doing may not be what she's doing later.
(00:07:57):
OK, can we back up to those comments?
(00:08:00):
Because I'm trying to remember when we recorded last week.
(00:08:03):
Did we record a day early?
(00:08:05):
Yeah, we were.
(00:08:06):
Why didn't we do that?
(00:08:06):
We missed it.
(00:08:08):
What the heck were we thinking?
(00:08:10):
I think that was actually that was my fault because I was on the road.
(00:08:14):
Covering Randy Feenster in Sioux Center, too.
(00:08:16):
I was at the Principal Charity Golf Classic.
(00:08:20):
Oh, yes, that's right.
(00:08:22):
Well, well, well.
(00:08:26):
Okay, and Laura, you were not in Parkersburg, were you?
(00:08:31):
No, I was not in Parkersburg.
(00:08:33):
I logged in and the first thing I saw was a message from somebody that said, whoa, Joanie.
(00:08:39):
I thought, oh, I guess I better look at what's happening.
(00:08:42):
And I've tried to dissect this a bunch.
(00:08:44):
So she's doing a town hall.
(00:08:46):
And Laura, I know you've seen that.
(00:08:48):
Kathy, I'm sorry.
(00:08:49):
I don't remember if you've written about this or not.
(00:08:51):
Laura, I know you have.
(00:08:52):
I've seen this mentioned in some of your columns.
(00:08:55):
My capital dispatch had a story.
(00:08:57):
No, I'm sorry.
(00:08:58):
I just mean the fact that in a climate where,
(00:09:02):
let's be honest,
(00:09:03):
it's not easy for a Republican politician to hold a true town hall because of the
(00:09:09):
way Democrats are organized right now and fired up.
(00:09:14):
you know, there are some that really don't see much benefit out of this.
(00:09:16):
You're going to stand out there and just get your teeth kicked in and yelled at and
(00:09:19):
screamed at whatever.
(00:09:20):
Grassley has been the best at keeping, you know, doing these things in our state.
(00:09:25):
But, you know, as you well know, there are Republicans who are advising them.
(00:09:29):
There's no
(00:09:30):
There's no win here.
(00:09:31):
It's just the opposition.
(00:09:32):
They're going to scream at you and you're not really communicating anything here.
(00:09:36):
So Senator Ernst did have a thing.
(00:09:39):
So early,
(00:09:40):
early,
(00:09:41):
730 in the morning,
(00:09:42):
last Friday in Parkersburg,
(00:09:43):
and I think it was at the high school,
(00:09:45):
if I remember right.
(00:09:46):
It was.
(00:09:46):
So to set this up,
(00:09:48):
she's kind of getting hammered like a lot of them are these days,
(00:09:51):
and they're talking about the potential Republican-led cuts to Medicaid and food
(00:09:56):
assistance with SNAP,
(00:09:58):
and some woman in the crowd was fired up and was saying that people are going to
(00:10:04):
die.
(00:10:05):
Senator Ernst then responds, we are all going to die, for heaven's sakes.
(00:10:10):
Mm-hmm.
(00:10:12):
And I started to write a column that night about it,
(00:10:16):
and I was thinking,
(00:10:17):
okay,
(00:10:17):
how did this happen?
(00:10:19):
Because that didn't seem like a thing I would expect Joni Ernst to say based on
(00:10:24):
covering her for the last 12 years or however long she's been in office.
(00:10:28):
But you're sitting in a room,
(00:10:29):
you're getting screamed at from all sides,
(00:10:32):
you're frustrated,
(00:10:33):
something comes out,
(00:10:34):
let's just say.
(00:10:35):
And again, this is me projecting because I haven't had any in-depth conversations with her.
(00:10:39):
But I don't know what you two felt,
(00:10:41):
but the video she chose to make the next day in a cemetery where she mocked the
(00:10:50):
whole thing and started to say,
(00:10:54):
you know,
(00:10:55):
I'm apologizing or whatever.
(00:10:58):
And then because I didn't realize that people don't know that you don't live forever.
(00:11:03):
And at least we don't have to talk about the tooth fairy.
(00:11:09):
What that,
(00:11:11):
Kathy,
(00:11:11):
you already said,
(00:11:12):
perhaps this was a video for an audience of one to try to make sure that Trump
(00:11:15):
doesn't get behind a primary challenger.
(00:11:18):
That to me showed how much she is willing to embrace the never admit you're wrong,
(00:11:27):
own the libs,
(00:11:29):
double down,
(00:11:30):
instead of even if you don't want to truly apologize,
(00:11:34):
You can just let the story go because the story is going to have gone away at some
(00:11:39):
point to some degree.
(00:11:40):
Had she not really leaned hard into it?
(00:11:42):
What do you think?
(00:11:42):
Yeah.
(00:11:42):
So I said, first of all, the actual town hall.
(00:11:47):
I mean, as I watched that unfold, it seemed to me like she clearly.
(00:11:56):
didn't that was not something she intended to say basically you know she i could
(00:12:01):
see her you know because she started to say nobody's gonna die um as in response to
(00:12:08):
the person who was yelling and you know she clearly realized she you can't say that
(00:12:14):
because it's you know it's probably not true and so she
(00:12:18):
She sort of pivoted and said, you know, and almost like she's telling herself this.
(00:12:23):
Well, you know, we're all going to die.
(00:12:26):
And it wasn't it wasn't like I think it was sort of the the correction to the idea
(00:12:33):
that she was she wanted to say nobody's going to die.
(00:12:36):
But, you know, we know we can't say that.
(00:12:39):
And then, you know, after that came out spectacularly bad.
(00:12:45):
Um,
(00:12:45):
you know,
(00:12:45):
I think she had an opportunity if she wanted to,
(00:12:48):
to say,
(00:12:49):
like,
(00:12:49):
it didn't come out the way I intended.
(00:12:52):
I,
(00:12:52):
you know,
(00:12:52):
all I'm trying to say is,
(00:12:54):
you know,
(00:12:55):
that we have to preserve Medicaid for the people who really need it.
(00:12:58):
You know,
(00:12:58):
basically like,
(00:12:59):
yeah,
(00:12:59):
but she chose not,
(00:13:00):
you know,
(00:13:01):
the fact that she chose to double 10 and go with the tooth fairy and,
(00:13:06):
and,
(00:13:06):
you know,
(00:13:07):
if we're going to live forever,
(00:13:09):
then embrace my Lord and savior.
(00:13:12):
That's where I think,
(00:13:13):
you know,
(00:13:13):
it showed,
(00:13:14):
one,
(00:13:15):
that she was worried about a Trump-endorsed challenger,
(00:13:20):
possibly.
(00:13:21):
And secondly, Laura, you were on the call on Monday with Chris Saliza, weren't you?
(00:13:30):
Mm-hmm.
(00:13:31):
So he also opined that she was going to raise money off of this.
(00:13:38):
The Democrats will too, of course, but she's probably going to raise money off of it too.
(00:13:43):
And so you're giving an opportunity for the MAGA right who have had their doubts
(00:13:53):
about Joni Ernst,
(00:13:54):
I think,
(00:13:55):
to reevaluate her probably.
(00:13:58):
I think a few things were going on.
(00:14:00):
First of all, this was her first town hall of this year.
(00:14:03):
And the way she and Senator Grassley do their town halls is they don't do them in
(00:14:08):
big Democratic towns,
(00:14:09):
big metro areas.
(00:14:10):
They mostly do them in red counties.
(00:14:13):
I went last summer to one of Senator Ernst's town halls.
(00:14:16):
It was, I think, nine in the morning in Winterset.
(00:14:19):
probably 25 or 30 people showed up, almost all friendly questions.
(00:14:24):
Maybe one person asked a slightly negative question,
(00:14:26):
but it was completely different from the atmosphere that we saw in Parkersburg.
(00:14:30):
So to my mind, she just wasn't prepared.
(00:14:32):
She was prepared with her talking points that she was,
(00:14:35):
as I kind of emphasized in my column about it,
(00:14:38):
she was
(00:14:39):
focused on,
(00:14:40):
oh,
(00:14:40):
we're only removing the people who aren't eligible and talking about illegal
(00:14:43):
immigrants and stuff that really isn't true about the bill.
(00:14:47):
And then she got flustered because after 40,
(00:14:50):
45 minutes of people hammering her and jeering and booing and lots of negative
(00:14:55):
questions and not a lot of positive reinforcement,
(00:14:58):
I felt that she was just exasperated when she said that.
(00:15:01):
And so the Saturday video was weird to me because humor is really difficult in politics.
(00:15:07):
and sarcasm.
(00:15:07):
I mean, it just wasn't well done on any level.
(00:15:10):
The tone wasn't consistent.
(00:15:12):
It wasn't like well arranged.
(00:15:14):
So I don't know who told her that that was a good idea.
(00:15:18):
I agree that it was just the Trumpification of our politics.
(00:15:21):
But she clearly, I agree with Kathy that she did not plan to say that at the town hall.
(00:15:28):
So then it was strange to me that she went ahead and, as you said, leaned into it on Saturday.
(00:15:33):
And then this week when interviewed
(00:15:35):
when Jeff Angelo on WHO Radio gave her a chance again to sort of say,
(00:15:39):
is there anything you wish you'd done differently?
(00:15:42):
And, you know, not really.
(00:15:44):
And, you know, I appreciate that sometimes in the media we can overdo something.
(00:15:50):
Somebody does a gaffe.
(00:15:52):
Somebody does a slip up, a screw up or whatever.
(00:15:56):
And,
(00:15:57):
you know,
(00:15:57):
you can get some reporting that's,
(00:16:00):
oh,
(00:16:00):
my gosh,
(00:16:00):
oh,
(00:16:00):
my gosh,
(00:16:01):
this is over and whatever,
(00:16:02):
whatever.
(00:16:04):
I will be curious.
(00:16:05):
I feel like we need to bookmark this one,
(00:16:07):
though,
(00:16:08):
and see if this has any legs to it a few months down the road and maybe even,
(00:16:15):
into next year or if it's just kind of one of those things in this climate that
(00:16:19):
we're into right now or,
(00:16:21):
you know,
(00:16:21):
Trump will say 10 things today and maybe it gets pushed out and people totally
(00:16:24):
forget about it.
(00:16:25):
But it just this one feels a little different to me,
(00:16:28):
but maybe I'm going to be totally wrong about it.
(00:16:30):
Well,
(00:16:31):
there are political gaps and then there are political gaps that fit perfectly on a
(00:16:35):
T-shirt.
(00:16:36):
And that fit perfectly on a bumper sticker.
(00:16:40):
And so we are all going to die, I think, is one of those.
(00:16:44):
We've already seen, you know, the T-shirts, et cetera.
(00:16:48):
So I do think this one's sticking around.
(00:16:52):
Somebody said recently,
(00:16:53):
it reminded them of Bruce Braley saying that we didn't want a farmer from Iowa who
(00:16:59):
never went to law school as head of the Senate Judiciary Committee,
(00:17:01):
which haunted him the entire time.
(00:17:05):
campaign.
(00:17:06):
And so I do think that this has has legs in the immediate way,
(00:17:11):
you know,
(00:17:11):
whether whether she will capitalize on it enough to neutralize it.
(00:17:16):
You know, I think that remains to be seen.
(00:17:19):
But when you're if you're going to commit a gap,
(00:17:23):
you probably want it to not fit so well on a T-shirt.
(00:17:27):
when when i saw the initial story on friday i thought well maybe this kind of thing
(00:17:32):
will blow over and that's why i wanted to focus on the planned messages that she
(00:17:36):
had about medicaid and the snap cuts in the bill but now as especially after that
(00:17:41):
video on saturday i think as time goes on i have seen people facebook friends who
(00:17:45):
have no connection to iowa never lived here i don't see them posting about politics
(00:17:49):
very often
(00:17:50):
I just can't tell you how many people have reached out to me about it or shared something.
(00:17:55):
So and I've seen Democrats from all over the country using this.
(00:17:58):
I think Chuck Schumer put it on a poster board where it's he was calling the
(00:18:03):
reconciliation bill that we all are going to die bill.
(00:18:06):
So I feel like this one is going to be something that people remember well into
(00:18:11):
next year's election campaign.
(00:18:13):
Okay, so I mentioned this right before we gathered on Friday morning.
(00:18:18):
Jim Carlin, the former Republican state senator, has launched another campaign for the U.S.
(00:18:25):
Senate.
(00:18:25):
So he would be,
(00:18:26):
let's just assume Joni Ernst is running for re-election for a third term,
(00:18:31):
despite saying she was only going to do two terms.
(00:18:33):
So she's going for a third term, and she wouldn't be the first politician to vote.
(00:18:38):
I believe Leonard Boswell back in the day also said he was going to limit.
(00:18:41):
I'm sure we can probably,
(00:18:41):
if we try hard enough,
(00:18:42):
think of some others who said they were only going to serve a certain number of
(00:18:46):
terms.
(00:18:46):
But I digress.
(00:18:48):
So Jim Carlin's back.
(00:18:50):
He ran against Grassley.
(00:18:52):
What year was that?
(00:18:53):
22.
(00:18:53):
22.
(00:18:54):
Is that all it is?
(00:18:56):
Man, we've been through a lot.
(00:18:58):
Yeah.
(00:18:59):
What didn't really,
(00:19:01):
it was not a situation like we saw with maybe some of the,
(00:19:05):
in 2024,
(00:19:06):
with some of the congressional Republican primaries where we had two of them that
(00:19:10):
were fairly competitive.
(00:19:13):
Carlin was not able to do that in the Senate race,
(00:19:15):
but what do we expect out of,
(00:19:18):
clearly he's going to try to hammer Senator Ernst from the right.
(00:19:21):
He's saying that she's part of the swamp.
(00:19:24):
He's already come after her when it comes to marriage,
(00:19:27):
saying that she hasn't done enough to defend man-woman marriage and oppose gay
(00:19:34):
marriage.
(00:19:35):
She's been chastised by however many county Republican parties back in the day,
(00:19:41):
a while back about that.
(00:19:43):
What do you make of this, Laura?
(00:19:45):
Well, he got about a quarter of the vote against Chuck Grassley and he raised almost no money.
(00:19:49):
I mean, he wasn't running a strong campaign.
(00:19:51):
So I think it's important to remember that there's always a constituency in the
(00:19:55):
Republican primary electorate that just doesn't like the establishment.
(00:19:59):
So I think he starts out probably with a base of whatever, 20, 25 percent.
(00:20:04):
I don't know whether he can put together the resources to run a real campaign.
(00:20:07):
He was also one of the most vocal Iowa legislators at the time when he was in the
(00:20:11):
Senate about the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump.
(00:20:16):
I mean,
(00:20:17):
he gave speeches about that on the Iowa Senate floor,
(00:20:20):
and that was something that he was angry that Senator Grassley
(00:20:24):
had voted to certify the Electoral College count.
(00:20:27):
So the reason why they're upset about Joni Ernst and marriage is that a few years
(00:20:31):
ago when Congress passed the Respect for Marriage Act,
(00:20:34):
which basically just confirmed that states have to recognize and the federal
(00:20:38):
government recognizes same-sex marriage and interfaith marriage,
(00:20:42):
Joni Ernst was one of the Republicans who voted for that.
(00:20:44):
Chuck Grassley did not.
(00:20:45):
So I think that's why that issue keeps coming up.
(00:20:48):
You know,
(00:20:49):
I don't think that Jim Carlin has the capacity to really put together a winning
(00:20:53):
campaign,
(00:20:53):
but who knows?
(00:20:54):
And in December,
(00:20:55):
remember,
(00:20:56):
Joshua Smith,
(00:20:57):
who used to be a libertarian,
(00:20:58):
went back to the Republican Party.
(00:20:59):
You know, he is supposedly running, but...
(00:21:02):
Haven't seen a lot other than a digital ad that he put up a few months ago.
(00:21:06):
Haven't seen a lot from his campaign.
(00:21:07):
So I don't know if he'll end up actually filing now that Jim Carlin is in the race.
(00:21:12):
I do want to see if Carlin,
(00:21:13):
as Kathy's already pointed out about,
(00:21:15):
you know,
(00:21:15):
the audience of one,
(00:21:16):
I think that's a bumper sticker we got to remember here,
(00:21:18):
too.
(00:21:19):
Is Carlin able to keep pulling Ernst to the right?
(00:21:26):
which could then make her potentially more vulnerable if this ends up being a
(00:21:30):
competitive general election campaign.
(00:21:33):
Kathy, what's your take?
(00:21:35):
Yeah, I would suggest that Joni Ernst's best play is just to ignore the primary competition.
(00:21:41):
I'm betting we will not be seeing primary debates,
(00:21:45):
for example,
(00:21:45):
unless other candidates join this fray.
(00:21:51):
She'll be best served by focusing on the general election and not really giving any
(00:21:57):
oxygen to a Jim Carlin campaign.
(00:22:01):
Karlyn might be wise to somehow try to recruit Elon's money with this.
(00:22:07):
We don't need to spend time on this podcast about the whole Trump-Elon debacle that
(00:22:13):
everyone could have predicted would have happened and indeed has happened.
(00:22:17):
And we'll see how ugly it gets.
(00:22:19):
But Elon has limited money, unlimited money.
(00:22:23):
And if he found somebody, you know, that was what Ernst was...
(00:22:27):
Early this year when she was potentially opposing Hegset,
(00:22:30):
that was the thing about whether Musk would fund a primary challenger.
(00:22:35):
But she's also ingratiated herself with her, you know, Iowa version of Doge, etc.
(00:22:42):
And she definitely was jumping on board with that with Elon very early on.
(00:22:45):
For sure.
(00:22:47):
I have a feeling that she,
(00:22:48):
you know,
(00:22:49):
if we had a thermometer about who she has a better relationship with,
(00:22:54):
Elon Musk or Donald Trump,
(00:22:56):
I'd probably lean toward Elon at the moment.
(00:22:58):
Elon right now, that might be.
(00:23:00):
Okay, so J.D.
(00:23:01):
Shelton,
(00:23:02):
the former two-time congressional candidate from Northwest Iowa and Sioux Center
(00:23:07):
and now current two-term state representative,
(00:23:12):
who's 45, and just as a baseball guy here, I do follow what he's doing up there.
(00:23:16):
He's playing ball again and just pitched out of the bullpen the other day.
(00:23:22):
Completely nonpolitical.
(00:23:24):
All right,
(00:23:24):
so he was,
(00:23:26):
you know,
(00:23:27):
as we all know,
(00:23:27):
he had been thinking about running for the Senate.
(00:23:29):
He was trying to figure out what he wanted to do.
(00:23:31):
Was there a pathway for him?
(00:23:33):
We remember that he pushed Steve King pretty hard back in 2018,
(00:23:39):
and his willingness to take Sioux City Sioux
(00:23:43):
That RV all over the district multiple times was almost like kind of a Netflix
(00:23:49):
special in the making to go out there and really get out to the people.
(00:23:53):
And his dad joined him sometimes and made King sweat a little bit and got a bunch
(00:24:00):
of outside money.
(00:24:01):
Anyway,
(00:24:02):
lost and lost by a bigger margin against Randy Feenstra after Feenstra knocked off
(00:24:06):
King in the primary in 2020.
(00:24:08):
So he's been in the state house.
(00:24:10):
He said he wasn't looking to actually get into this U.S.
(00:24:13):
Senate race yet.
(00:24:15):
But then with all the Ernst stuff last weekend, he ended up launching on Monday.
(00:24:20):
I wasn't quite sure with the launch.
(00:24:22):
It came out in the Sioux City Journal.
(00:24:23):
I didn't think it was even real yet.
(00:24:26):
I'm not sure.
(00:24:27):
I don't know how that all came out.
(00:24:28):
Regardless, it's out.
(00:24:29):
He's running.
(00:24:31):
He may not be the most polished speaker,
(00:24:36):
but I'm curious what you both make of his entrance into the race.
(00:24:39):
We already have Nathan Sage,
(00:24:41):
the former independent who is now a member of the Democratic Party from the
(00:24:45):
Knoxville area.
(00:24:48):
a military veteran.
(00:24:50):
How does this shake out, maybe on the Democratic side, with Scholten in there and now with Sage?
(00:24:54):
And we'll see when Zach Walts gets in.
(00:24:57):
Yeah,
(00:24:57):
I think he hurried up the announcement to take advantage of the fact that,
(00:25:02):
you know,
(00:25:03):
Johnny Ernst Gaff made
(00:25:06):
you know, potentially an opening in the race.
(00:25:11):
So he's an interesting candidate.
(00:25:14):
He was an interesting candidate in the fourth district.
(00:25:16):
And,
(00:25:17):
you know,
(00:25:18):
while no Democrat is likely to win in the fourth district,
(00:25:24):
the fact that he is well known there and he's got kind of an engaging story and
(00:25:31):
and personality may allow him to get more votes in the fourth district than a
(00:25:38):
typical Democrat running for U.S.
(00:25:40):
Senate.
(00:25:42):
And that could be potentially important if somebody could get close in the rest of
(00:25:50):
the state to actually be able to pick up some votes in the fourth district.
(00:25:55):
So I don't automatically discount him.
(00:26:00):
Obviously I think he has,
(00:26:02):
a really high bar to to,
(00:26:07):
you know,
(00:26:07):
think about knocking off a Republican incumbent like but but,
(00:26:12):
you know,
(00:26:13):
like you said,
(00:26:13):
you know,
(00:26:14):
kind of a Netflix story.
(00:26:17):
And,
(00:26:18):
you know,
(00:26:19):
I think one of the things one of the challenges he has is to be able to clearly
(00:26:24):
articulate a message that will resonate in a bipartisan way.
(00:26:31):
I think that,
(00:26:31):
first of all,
(00:26:32):
I want to say about his race against Steve King in 2018,
(00:26:35):
I think people forget how the Republican political establishment was very much okay
(00:26:40):
with Steve King until he almost lost that race.
(00:26:43):
I mean, Steve King was a co-chair of Kim Reynolds' campaign.
(00:26:47):
in 2018.
(00:26:48):
And then by 2020,
(00:26:49):
I think that Republicans just didn't want to have to worry about a district that
(00:26:53):
should be so safe for them.
(00:26:54):
So you saw a lot of establishment money get behind and interest groups get behind
(00:26:58):
Randy Feenstra in that primary.
(00:26:59):
So I think that J.D.
(00:27:00):
Scholten can credibly claim to have helped take Steve King out of Congress,
(00:27:05):
because I don't think that that 2020 primary would ever have happened if King
(00:27:09):
hadn't almost lost.
(00:27:11):
But he only won by a little more than three points.
(00:27:13):
So in a Democratic primary, I think that J.D.
(00:27:16):
Scholten is pretty well positioned.
(00:27:18):
I think he does have a message that anti-monopoly power, taking power away from billionaires.
(00:27:23):
I think that's something a lot of people like.
(00:27:25):
I think the campaigning around the state is going to go over very well.
(00:27:29):
I don't know.
(00:27:30):
You know,
(00:27:30):
Zach Walls,
(00:27:31):
assuming he does run for Senate,
(00:27:32):
as I think we all do,
(00:27:34):
he does have a base of support in eastern Iowa,
(00:27:36):
which is where there are more votes in a Democratic primary.
(00:27:39):
But I think that J.D.
(00:27:41):
is pretty well-known and well-liked.
(00:27:42):
And the baseball, Dave, that you mentioned, I think that that's helpful.
(00:27:46):
He is one of the oldest voters.
(00:27:49):
still professionally pitching, the Sioux City Explorers.
(00:27:51):
I mean, they're a low, lower, I don't know what tier they are in the minor league.
(00:27:56):
But in any case,
(00:27:57):
he has his jersey that he wore last year when he came back to pitching is in the
(00:28:02):
Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown.
(00:28:04):
So, I mean, I think that's kind of an interesting story that is,
(00:28:08):
fund that makes people who aren't very political want to know more about J.D.
(00:28:12):
Scholten.
(00:28:12):
So I feel like this is an opportunity for him.
(00:28:15):
And my dad used to say, when the pie is being passed around, that's the time to take a slice.
(00:28:20):
So don't wait until you think the timing is perfect.
(00:28:23):
And so it makes sense to me that he decided to jump in once Joni Ernst was at the
(00:28:28):
center of all the national news.
(00:28:30):
Yeah,
(00:28:30):
I think his decision there,
(00:28:32):
while there was no like slick,
(00:28:34):
like Nathan Sage's launch was slick,
(00:28:36):
right?
(00:28:38):
Very well produced video that he put out there,
(00:28:41):
did the media,
(00:28:41):
you know,
(00:28:42):
media tour thing too,
(00:28:43):
but very slick.
(00:28:46):
messaged,
(00:28:47):
launched everybody,
(00:28:48):
the kind of introduction thing,
(00:28:50):
and Scholten didn't do it that way,
(00:28:52):
but smartly got in there when there's so much attention.
(00:28:56):
And I was trying to watch a little bit from social media where Scholten was doing
(00:29:01):
interviews,
(00:29:02):
and he was all over the place.
(00:29:04):
Podcasts, I think he did MSNBC, I can't remember if he did CNN, but he was on a bunch of stuff.
(00:29:09):
And as we all know from 2018,
(00:29:13):
One of the things he was able to do by running against Steve King was tap into this
(00:29:18):
outside money that is so critical,
(00:29:21):
especially for Democrats who struggle to raise that kind of big time statewide
(00:29:26):
money within our borders.
(00:29:28):
And I'll be very curious to see what kind of money he brought in with the way he launched here.
(00:29:37):
Yeah,
(00:29:37):
I mean,
(00:29:37):
he's coming in in the last month before the end of a fundraising quarter,
(00:29:41):
which a lot of times candidates don't want to do.
(00:29:43):
They want to announce early in a fundraising quarter so they have more money to
(00:29:46):
report at the end.
(00:29:47):
But yeah, it will be interesting.
(00:29:49):
We'll find out in mid-July how much he raised off of this.
(00:29:52):
But he's got a pretty large email list already.
(00:29:54):
OK.
(00:29:58):
so i'm uncertain about how to proceed forward ladies does it make sense because we
(00:30:05):
have kind of an internal clock and we try to be respectful of the folks who either
(00:30:08):
watch or listen to our conversation kathy i know you need to get on the road and
(00:30:13):
laura you have an engagement
(00:30:15):
Is it rude that even at the beginning of this it's that we have some new candidates
(00:30:20):
for governor.
(00:30:22):
Is it rude if we put a pause on that and make that our in depth discussion next
(00:30:28):
week when we'll probably have a few more developments that we can kind of flush
(00:30:32):
that out,
(00:30:33):
just so that we allow some time at the end Kathy I wanted to make sure,
(00:30:37):
are you,
(00:30:37):
are you cool with that Laura.
(00:30:38):
That's fine.
(00:30:39):
Okay.
(00:30:40):
Sorry for false advertising.
(00:30:42):
For those of you who are watching this, I feel like a butthead for doing that.
(00:30:45):
But we try to be respectful with about a 30 minute,
(00:30:50):
you know,
(00:30:50):
kind of internal clock as we do this.
(00:30:52):
But I wanted to make sure at the end,
(00:30:54):
we had time for Kathy to share an experience she had while she's in Minneapolis.
(00:31:00):
Yeah, so I'm up here with my colleagues in 39 states newsroom outlets around the country.
(00:31:09):
And we've always had this meeting in D.C.
(00:31:12):
before now, but we decided to move it out into a more central location.
(00:31:18):
We've got a lot of West Coast editors, including one coming from Alaska, et cetera.
(00:31:23):
So that gave us an opportunity, actually, to sit down with a special guest.
(00:31:30):
On Thursday, Governor Tim Walz came in person to speak to the group.
(00:31:36):
And our Minnesota colleague,
(00:31:39):
Minnesota reformer editor,
(00:31:40):
Patrick Kulikin,
(00:31:44):
actually interviewed him live.
(00:31:46):
And he had some pretty interesting things to say.
(00:31:49):
One, of course, the question, are you running for president?
(00:31:53):
And he said no.
(00:31:54):
Of course, he has been in Iowa.
(00:31:56):
He has been around the country.
(00:31:57):
He's been in California.
(00:31:58):
He's been in South Carolina recently.
(00:32:01):
And so the way he just, you know, because people are they're never running until they are.
(00:32:08):
So,
(00:32:08):
I mean,
(00:32:09):
I think it's still possible that he might run for president,
(00:32:12):
but but he described it as,
(00:32:15):
you know,
(00:32:16):
as a.
(00:32:17):
You know, sort of an accidental vice presidential candidate.
(00:32:22):
You know,
(00:32:23):
he now has a national audience and he said all Democrats have to take advantage of
(00:32:28):
that.
(00:32:29):
He said we need to fill all the lanes and be getting out there talking as best we can.
(00:32:35):
So and I did ask him,
(00:32:38):
well,
(00:32:39):
so in light of what happened in 2024,
(00:32:42):
should Democrats retool the nominating calendar again?
(00:32:48):
And, you know, if so, what state should start?
(00:32:50):
And he, of course, said, well, Minnesota.
(00:32:53):
And then he kind of laughed.
(00:32:55):
But he is not he is.
(00:32:58):
He's,
(00:32:58):
I think,
(00:32:58):
consistently been in favor of rotating states through the early nominating
(00:33:05):
positions.
(00:33:06):
So not having a secret, sacred Iowa, New Hampshire twin starting gate, which.
(00:33:14):
It's interesting because,
(00:33:15):
again,
(00:33:15):
in our conversation with Chris Saliza,
(00:33:18):
he suggested,
(00:33:19):
you know,
(00:33:19):
maybe it would be a good idea for Democrats to go back to Iowa,
(00:33:22):
New Hampshire and the traditional starting states because it had worked for a lot
(00:33:27):
of years and that there were advantages to that for Democrats.
(00:33:32):
But I want to mention one other thing that Walls said that I thought was pretty newsworthy is
(00:33:38):
And this is speaking with his governor hat on.
(00:33:41):
He said that the federal government has been completely incommunicado with
(00:33:47):
Minnesota,
(00:33:48):
impossible to get a hold of.
(00:33:50):
You know, there's just nobody on the other end of the phone when you call.
(00:33:54):
And he's worried about
(00:33:57):
what happens with a natural disaster or something like a cybersecurity crisis.
(00:34:04):
He mentioned, we've got this nuclear power plant.
(00:34:07):
And if that thing's melting down, we can't get anybody in the federal government.
(00:34:12):
Things are going to be really bad.
(00:34:15):
And he suggested that Republican governors are not saying anything and so therefore
(00:34:22):
may be having the same problem.
(00:34:25):
I'm skeptical of that.
(00:34:27):
I think Republican governors are,
(00:34:29):
you know,
(00:34:29):
at least going through back channels and getting a hold of somebody.
(00:34:34):
But I thought that was interesting.
(00:34:35):
And the other thing he said was, you know, during Trump's first term,
(00:34:42):
that there were enough people in the administration who felt that the job was
(00:34:48):
important,
(00:34:48):
that they would get in touch,
(00:34:50):
including Mike Pence,
(00:34:52):
he said.
(00:34:52):
Mike Pence would go under the radar and pick up the phone and make sure things were going okay.
(00:34:58):
But now all of those people are gone, including Mike Pence.
(00:35:03):
And so he is definitely worried, he said, about
(00:35:06):
You know, what happens when there is a big national natural disaster or attack in a blue state?
(00:35:13):
So anyway, interesting conversation.
(00:35:15):
I'm not convinced he's not going to run.
(00:35:18):
But, you know, he he was also fairly candid for for, you know, a prospective candidate.
(00:35:28):
So we'll see what happens.
(00:35:30):
All right.
(00:35:31):
And again, I feel like I need to apologize again for teasing.
(00:35:35):
One of the things I always make fun of in television,
(00:35:39):
it's called antisappointment with television promotions.
(00:35:43):
I'm sure other medium do this, but
(00:35:45):
You know, you see some kind of promo and you're like, oh my gosh, I got to watch this.
(00:35:49):
And you're watching like, what the hell was that?
(00:35:51):
Like this had nothing to do with the story or the show I just watched.
(00:35:55):
So I completely hate saying we're going to do something and not doing something,
(00:35:59):
but I want to be respectful of kind of the time limits and everything here.
(00:36:01):
So we'll do a more in-depth discussion about the race for governor next week.
(00:36:07):
And who knows, maybe there'll be some more developments by then.
(00:36:10):
You're teasing again.
(00:36:13):
And who knows if we'll actually follow.
(00:36:15):
That's a good point.
(00:36:16):
My gosh.
(00:36:16):
Yeah, that would be horrible if I do this two times in a row.
(00:36:19):
I hope I don't do that.
(00:36:21):
So hold me to this.
(00:36:22):
Don't let my old man brain forget to do this next week.
(00:36:25):
Kathy and Laura, thank you both.
(00:36:27):
Thank you.
(00:36:28):
Thanks to all of you for supporting the Iowa Down Ballot podcast.
(00:36:33):
We want to thank our producer, Spencer Dirks.
(00:36:35):
We want to thank our musician, D'Artagnan Brown, for contributing to this as well.
(00:36:41):
And thanks to all of you who have been financial supporters of what we're doing here.
(00:36:45):
Thank you for those of you who share this so that other people can join this
(00:36:50):
conversation in whatever way,
(00:36:51):
if you're able to financially contribute.
(00:36:54):
to pay the bills for all this stuff that would be great and we greatly appreciate
(00:36:57):
that we also hope that you'll check out all the individual columnists from the for
(00:37:01):
the iowa writers collaborative same deal subscribe if you can share the work to
(00:37:07):
others so that they can subscribe as well if you're able to financially support any
(00:37:12):
of the writers and the collaborative we very much appreciate that as well
(00:37:17):
Thank you for joining us this week.
(00:37:18):
We'll talk to you,
(00:37:19):
hopefully next week,
(00:37:20):
talking about the race for governor,
(00:37:22):
if we remember,
(00:37:22):
and something else doesn't push it out of the way.
(00:37:25):
But we'll talk to you next week.
Share this post