En esta noticia
Democrat Josh Turek flipped Iowa’s open U.S. Senate seat Tuesday, defeating Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson 50% to 46%, according to unofficial results from the Iowa Secretary of State’s Office.
Turek is the first Democrat to win a Senate race in Iowa since former Sen. Tom Harkin in 2008. Libertarian Thomas Laehn took 3% of the vote, with all 99 counties reporting.
The 47-year-old will be sworn in Jan. 3, replacing Republican Sen. Joni Ernst, who chose not to run again. Democrats needed a net gain of at least four seats to win the Senate majority.
Turek centered his campaign on the cost of living. He tied Hinson to President Donald Trump’s tariffs and to the war with Iran, which pushed up fuel prices across the state.
Who is Josh Turek, the Paralympian who flipped Iowa’s Senate seat?
Turek was born with spina bifida, a condition he links to his father’s exposure to Agent Orange during a Navy tour in Vietnam. He had undergone 21 surgeries by age 12.
Around that age, he took up wheelchair basketball. He went on to play in college, professionally in Europe and at four Paralympic Games, winning gold in Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo and bronze in London.
After his playing days, he supplied mobility equipment to people with disabilities. In 2022, he won a seat in the Iowa House from Council Bluffs by six votes, becoming its first member with a permanent disability.
In Washington, he says his top priority is a public health insurance option, a government-run plan people could buy into. He also campaigned as a moderate, saying he would work with Trump on border security and had no interest in impeachment.
Why did Josh Turek’s transgender ad split Iowa Democrats?
In the final weeks of the race, Turek ran an ad saying “no Iowan should face discrimination” but that he opposes “males competing in female sports” and is “against taxpayers paying for sex changes.” The ad restated positions he had taken before.
It followed millions of dollars in Republican ads on the issue. One ad from Hinson and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Senate GOP’s campaign arm, said he backed taxpayer-funded surgeries. Turek told CNN he wanted to “set the record straight.”
Days before the election, Osceola County Democratic Party Chair Kathy Winter said his stance contradicts the state party’s platform on transgender health care. She later said she had voted absentee before the ad aired and left the Senate race blank over his earlier comments.
The LGBTQ+ advocacy group One Iowa Action also condemned the ad. State party Chair Rita Hart and other Democrats defended Turek. Democratic state House candidate Adam Peters said he disagreed with the ad but could “talk to him and make my concerns heard,” something he said he couldn’t do with Hinson.