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Republicans’ attention is quickly shifting to Rep. Ashley Hinson ahead of the expected retirement of Iowa GOP Sen. Joni Ernst, according to several people familiar with the matter.
CBS News first reported on Friday morning that Ernst has told confidants that she won’t run for reelection next week in her red-leaning state. Republicans were increasingly bearish on Ernst running again in recent months, though the White House attempted to persuade her to seek reelection given her strong track record in general elections.
Ernst is the second battleground-state senator to retire this summer — although Iowa is significantly redder than North Carolina, where Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., is not running again. Iowa Republicans also have a fairly deep bench beyond Hinson; the party will still enter next year’s Senate race with an advantage.
While Ernst is close to Hinson, who declined to pursue a House GOP leadership spot that opened up soon after President Donald Trump’s election, an open seat could draw other challengers as well. Matt Whitaker, now the US Ambassador to NATO, ran for the seat in 2014 and is seen as a potential candidate in a state that has shifted right since 2012.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee declined to comment. Ernst’s office declined comment.
Several Democrats are already running, including state Rep. Josh Turek, state Sen. Zach Wahls, and Des Moines Public Schools chair Jackie Norris. Iowa’s gubernatorial seat is also open in next year’s midterms, with Gov. Kim Reynolds declining reelection.
Fellow Republicans saw Ernst as increasingly less likely to run over the past year, after she lost a race to Sen. Tom Cotton for her party’s conference chair position, then faced blowback from conservatives for balking at Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s nomination.
Soon after that, she became a target for Democrats for sarcastically responding to criticisms of her party’s Medicaid cuts by observing that “we all are going to die.”
Still, Ernst told Semafor recently that the White House was urging her to run and that if she did, she expected to have Trump’s support.
“I’m glad that they are encouraging me,” Ernst said in an interview afterward. “It’s nice to know that they support me.”
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Ernst’s departure makes the Senate map more interesting as Democrats seek to flip the four seats they need to gain control from the GOP — all while protecting seats they currently hold.
Former Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, is pursuing a return to the chamber; former Gov. Roy Cooper, D-N.C., is running against former RNC Chair Michael Whatley; and Democrats are trying to oust Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.
Even with the addition of an open seat in Iowa as well as a tough internal GOP primary in Texas, though, everything will have to go right in order for Democrats to reclaim the majority.
They still celebrated Ernst’s exit. Maeve Coyle, a spokeswoman for Senate Democrats’ campaign arm, said that “Republicans begged Joni Ernst to run for reelection because they know that her retirement deals another blow to their chances.”
Notable
- Wahls’ imminent candidacy was first reported by us back in June.