Why Republicans Are Nervous About Iowa
Bulwark Takes
The Bulwark
4.7 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 2 June 2026
⏱️ 11 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Sarah Longwell gives her take on the state of the race in Iowa ahead of Tuesday's primary elections. With Donald Trump's approval numbers slipping, farmers feeling the effects of tariffs, and growing frustration with Republican leadership in the state, Democrats believe they have a real opportunity to compete in races that once seemed out of reach. Sarah breaks down what's driving voter anger and looks at Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand, the Democratic Senate primary between Josh Turek and Zach Wahls, and why national political observers are suddenly paying close attention to a state that has trended Republican for years. Is Iowa becoming competitive again? And could it be one of the biggest surprises of the 2026 election cycle?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey guys, Sarah Longwell here, publisher of the bulwark. There's a primary tomorrow in Iowa, |
| 0:04.5 | and I'm extremely excited about it, and I want to tell you guys the state of the race as we go into this primary. |
| 0:10.1 | So we're going to talk about the Senate and governor's race today. But before we do that, |
| 0:15.0 | let's look at the political landscape right now in Iowa. First of all, we've been conducting |
| 0:19.4 | focus groups in Iowa, and |
| 0:20.9 | Iowans are really mad at both Donald Trump and their governor, Kim Reynolds. And the Democrats, |
| 0:28.4 | for the first time in a long time, are running some really strong races. You've got Rob Sand, |
| 0:35.0 | who's running for governor. You've got Josh Turrick and Zach Walls, who are vying for the Senate, and we're going to find out which one of them will be in the general election after the primaries. And they also have a slate of very strong House candidates. So why are people mad at Kim Reynolds and Donald Trump? Well, number one, this is Iowa and the tariffs are hitting them really hard. Before the tariffs, Donald Trump had a 52% approval rating in the state. Still not super great for Iowa, but he is currently at 42%. Farmers are losing money, |
| 1:14.2 | even with the federal subsidies that are trying to offset the impact of the tariffs. You've got soybean |
| 1:19.7 | farmers are losing about $75 an anchor. Trump's one big beautiful bill kicked nearly 100,000 |
| 1:26.1 | Iowans off their health insurance. And Reynolds is one of the most |
| 1:31.5 | unpopular governors. I was seen in a while. They had the school vouchers issue that came up in a lot of |
| 1:37.7 | the focus groups where some schools have had to go down to four days a week because of their school |
| 1:43.7 | vouchers program. |
| 1:45.2 | There's a lot of people talking about the six-week abortion ban they enacted there in Iowa, |
| 1:51.3 | which people think is too extreme. |
| 1:53.4 | And then there's this issue of cancer water, which I had not heard about until I started |
| 1:57.4 | focus grouping in Iowa. |
| 1:59.3 | But essentially, you've got a lot of chemicals going |
| 2:03.3 | into the water and a lot of people in Iowa say that they're experiencing these incredibly high cancer |
| 2:08.0 | rates. So I want to play just a little bit of focus group sounds since we have it from some of these |
| 2:14.8 | Kim Reynolds voters who are currently what I would call Sand Curious, |
... |
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