Trump sinking Republican hopes in Iowa

Ashley Hinson and Randy Feenstra might regret hitching their wagons to Donald Trump’s star.

It could turn out to be the Hindenburg.

Rep. Hinson says she is honored to fight beside Trump as he threatens to obliterate Persian civilization. She seeks the Republican nomination to replace the retiring Sen. Joni Ernst.

Rep. Feenstra is airing TV ads backing Trump on deporting immigrants. Feenstra is not running for border czar. He is running for governor. Sioux County could not survive without Mexicans serving Dutch, but who says hypocrites can’t thrive in politics?

Trump is under water. Maybe by double digits everywhere but Northwest Iowa. Health clinics and schools are closing. The state is dog-tired of Kim Reynolds. Most of us are not into hassling gays, and the book ban that keeps Huck Finn out of school libraries has gone live.

Hinson and Feenstra should run away from this cauldron of dread as fast as they can. Still, Trump polls at 86% among Republicans for bombing Iran back to the Stone Age. Each has primary opponents. Trump endorsed Hinson. Feenstra should be glad Trump hasn’t picked one of his GOP foes, at least, because he would be a goner.

Neither of them will shed the tar baby dragging on them on the slog to the general election in November.

Democrats have been flipping deep red districts to blue in a string of special elections nationally and in Iowa. No Kings protests are drawing big crowds in small towns on raw spring days. People in Cherokee and Denison are not that fired up about trade wars. They are agitated by wars that raise diesel prices. Ethanol plants are not thriving. A family of four spends $700 a year more on groceries than it did in 2020. People miss T-bones more than they love Trump.

Dave Nagle, the former Democratic congressman from Waterloo, told me he thinks Lindsay James of Dubuque can flip the Second District to blue. Hinson holds the seat, so her run for the Senate opens it up. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks is always in trouble, except apparently deeper this time as Democrat Christina Bohannon tests a rematch in the First District. Incumbent Republican Congressman Zach Nunn could get chewed up by an energizer bunny in the form of Sarah Trone Garriott, who knows how to win, in the Congressional district around Des Moines.

None of the atmospherics favor the party in power.

Iowa’s economy is among the worst in the land. Farmers are begging for a second bailout, the first for the trade wars and the second for the Iran War. Trump poured nearly $100 billion into agribusiness bailouts in his first term. That’s why farmers voted for Trump on his third try. There aren’t enough of them anymore to make up for discontent in Boone, where teachers get the hook and the orchestra gets shut down. Property taxes are suffocating households.

Inflation set off by the Iran War will not be tamed before November. Fertilizer prices will not swoon. Property tax relief, if there is any, will not come in time.

Hinson is good. She was a TV news anchor. She reads the lines Trump writes for her. Trump has $500 million on his own to defend the Senate. Yet he threatens to drag her into his quicksand as he goes unmoored. Even Tucker Carlson disavowed Trump’s Easter vulgarities. Trump trashing the pope won’t play well in Dubuque. Hinson has been so close to Trump she cannot get away from him. She will have formidable opposition in either Josh Turek or Zach Wahls if they don’t draw too much blood from each other before June.

Feenstra is no slouch. He ousted Rep. Steve King with the help of Establishment Republicans. Feenstra is leaning on the Establishment to deliver again. The tall drink of water from Hull is in a five-way primary. Anything can happen. Nagle thinks Sand handles Feenstra. GOP opponent Zach Lahn is just coming onto the radar screen with an appealing populist message about breaking up the conglomerates and respecting the land. 

Nagle feels good about Sand. He is the antithesis of Trump, a Boy Scout serving as state auditor. Trump would never gut a deer. Sand is coming out strong for public schools, and demanding control over Medicaid. He is running a smart, well-endowed campaign. It’s a toss-up between Sand and a Republican, according to Cook Political Report, which is remarkable.

If Trump had not gone bombs away I don’t think Iowa Democrats would be this chipper. Ashley WolfTornabane of Storm Lake is having a lot of fun running for Congress though odds are against her. The Concerned Citizens of Sac County continue to resist the demise of democracy knowing full well where they are.

There is definitely an enthusiasm gap, and a division among rural Republicans who feel sold out.

Trump will prove to be a fatal weight even for Hinson unless he throws such an overwhelming amount of money at Iowa that there can be no contest. He thought he could do that in Iran. It didn’t work.