Every day, Seth Watkins wakes with the sun.
The 58-year-old farmer raises livestock on a southwest Iowa farm that’s been in his family since the 1840s. Like most farmers, Watkins is up and working before much of the rest of the country’s alarm clocks go off, feeding his cows and sheep.
Also like most farmers in recent years, Watkins has felt an undeniable economic squeeze, and the problem has only been exacerbated by policy decisions coming from the White House, including on tariffs and wars abroad.
It’s those policies that are also making Iowa increasingly competitive politically ahead of November’s midterm elections. Republicans began the cycle heavily favored to keep the Senate seat held by Sen. Joni Ernst firmly in their column.
But with Ernst retiring and the political winds shifting, Iowa represents a pickup opportunity for Senate Democrats, who are eyeing gains in a handful of red states in their quest to retake the majority. In a sign of how crucial the state could be to control of the Senate, the Senate Leadership Fund, the top GOP super PAC in Senate races, recently announced it plans to spend $29 million on the Iowa race, as part of a $342 million eight-state plan to maintain their majority.
President Donald Trump’s policies on tariffs and the ongoing conflict in Iran have sent the prices for farmers, especially for fertilizer and diesel, through the roof.
“I’m not sure the noise is loud enough on the frustration with tariffs, and I don’t think people are quite putting together the impact that fossil fuel is going to have at the farm yet,” Watkins said in an interview. He’s part of the Iowa Farmers United by Commonsense, a new Democrat-affiliated farmers group.
Still a red state?
In recent cycles, Iowa has shifted sharply from a battleground state to deep-red territory. Trump comfortably carried the state in the past three presidential elections, including by 13 points in 2024. There’s just one Democrat left in statewide office — state Auditor Rob Sand, who is running for governor — and no Iowa Democrat has won election to Congress since Rep. Cindy Axne claimed a second term in 2020.
But both Democrats in the Senate race — state Rep. Josh Turek and state Sen. Zach Wahls — believe things are changing.
“We are not a red state,’’ Turek said in an interview. “We’re a commonsense state that has masqueraded as more red than we are.” He said Democrats have “a once in a generation opportunity” in Iowa this year.
To win, either Turek or Wahls will most likely need to defeat Rep. Ashley Hinson, who has Trump’s endorsement in the Republican primary.
“President Trump has been the only one willing to challenge the broken status quo and fight to level the playing field for American farmers, workers, and businesses,”
Hinson said in a statement. “My priority is making sure those efforts translate into real results for Iowa — new markets, enforceable agreements, and long-term certainty for our producers facing tight margins and high input costs.”
National Republican Senatorial Committee spokeswoman Samantha Cantrell said Hinson and Trump “understand the difficulties Iowa’s farmers are facing and are dedicated to leveling the playing field, lowering costs, and increasing market access so they can continue doing what they do best: feed the world.”
Independent polling has been sparse, but a recent Democratic poll from GBAO showed Trump and Hinson with negative net favorability ratings. The survey also found Hinson underwater with independents, a crucial group in the state.
Timothy Hagle, a political science professor at the University of Iowa, said independents in the state, or “no party” voters, were “a big enough group that they basically decide” statewide and congressional elections.
“They’re the ones that are least tied to the parties,” he added. “They’re more concerned about those kitchen table issues, or checkbook issues.”
Trump’s sliding poll numbers have boosted Democrats’ hopes, Wahls said.
“Donald Trump’s approval rating in the state is underwater, and continuing to fall like a rock,” he said. “And Hinson, choosing to tie herself to Trump the way that she has, has given us an incredible opportunity.”
Ernst acknowledged the need to “work on those trade issues” amid a “declining farm economy,” but she said her seat remained safe for Republicans.
“Broadly, when our voters, whether they are a Democrat, independent or Republican, when they look at those candidates, they’re going to look at the quality of candidates and who’s going to represent them,” she said Tuesday. “And I do think that Ashley Hinson is going to walk away with that race.”
Tariffs, war and ‘short term pain’
Watkins recalled when he felt the need to start “downsizing” his corn and soybean farm operations in the face of market challenges, frustrations and what he saw as a lack of urgency from Washington.
Watkins portrayed a market under strain, where pricing no longer reflects basic supply-and-demand dynamics, and he said tariffs have only intensified that pressure amid ongoing global trade tensions.
“I especially look at the soybean markets just being decimated with the swipe of a pen by our president and tariffs,” he said. “I think there was a lot of feeling that people really genuinely felt that trade was unfair and we all needed to do our part to make things right.”
But caught in tariff crosshairs, soybean prices have stayed low while the price for fertilizer and fossil fuels have skyrocketed because of the conflict in Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a quarter of the world’s total oil and natural gas supply passes through.
“The chemicals that farmers use are derived from fossil fuel. If the price of fossil fuel is effectively doubled, all these things are going to double,” Watkins said. “We’ve coupled it with making adversaries of some of our greatest trading partners, which has totally destabilized the price of grain.”
The Trump administration has framed its tariff policies as causing short-term pain for long-term gain.
“Farmers are living pretty close to the edge because of the way they have to finance their crops and plan for the future and pay for the equipment and all this kind of stuff. And so there’s only so much short term pain that they can endure before things get pretty tough for them,” Hagle said.
Watkins said while some “farmers have a lot of their inputs purchased already for this year’s crop” for things like fertilizer and fuel, the “uncertainty of what we’re facing come into summer and next year’s crop is overwhelming.”
Congress has also yet to pass a five-year farm bill to replace the legislation that expired in 2023; the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026 awaits action on the House floor.
Democratic differences
The two Democrats seeking to flip the Senate seat offer up differing visions.
Turek, a two-time Paralympic gold medalist, describes himself as a “commonsense prairie populist” who would be more electable statewide in red-leaning Iowa.
Wahls, a progressive backed by Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, is running on an anti-corruption platform. He drew parallels between Trump’s anti-establishment ethos, which helped propel him to the White House in 2016, and voters’ disenchantment with the president’s current policies.
“Donald Trump ran on draining the swamp, and he wasn’t wrong that we need to do that,’’ Wahls said. “The problem is that he is not draining the swamp. He’s swimming laps in it.”
Wahls has attacked Turek as a favorite of Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer. Schumer has not publicly endorsed a candidate, but the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has promoted a Turek event.
Both candidates identified factors fueling their party’s hopes in November: Trump’s tariff policies; the expiration of subsidies that brought down the cost of insurance under the Affordable Care Act; threats faced by rural hospitals driven by Medicaid cuts contained in the GOP’s signature tax and spending law; and the war in Iran, which has already claimed the lives of two Iowa Army Reserve soldiers.
Such cost-of-living issues, according to Turek and Wahls, have helped fuel a growing disenchantment with Iowa Republicans, who have held a governing trifecta in the state since 2017.
“It doesn’t matter where we are, urban areas or rural areas, “ Turek said, “Iowans are hurting. They’re struggling just to keep a roof above their head and food on the table and keep gas in there in their tanks.”
