Meet the candidates running for Joni Ernst’s Iowa Senate seat
Meet the candidates running for Iowa’s open U.S. Senate seat in 2026.
- State Representative Josh Turek and State Senator Zach Walls are facing off for the Democratic nomination for Iowa’s U.S. Senate seat, aiming to win the seat for the first time in 18 years.
- Turek says he was “battle tested” after winning the Iowa House seat in Council Bluffs, even though President Donald Trump was leading in the district.
- Walls says he has shown he is ready to take on the political establishment in both the Republican and Democratic parties, which makes him well-suited to win.
Iowa Democrats believe they have a chance to retake Iowa’s vacant U.S. Senate seat this year.
But first they need to choose a fighter.
State Representative Josh Turek and State Senator Zach Walls will face off in the state’s Democratic primary on June 2nd. And in a year when party voters are looking for someone who can win a tough election and stand up to President Donald Trump’s administration, each candidate is emphasizing their ability to take on the Republican front-runner, U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson.
Mr. Turek, of the Bluffs Council, said winning the Iowa House seat in the western Iowa district pushed by Mr. Trump was “a battle-test.” He tells the story of how he endured 21 surgeries by the age of 12 and went on to become a gold medal-winning Paralympic athlete representing Team USA.
Walls, a Coralville resident, says he wants to fight against a corrupt political system that is rigged to favor billionaires and big corporations at the expense of the middle class. He rose to political prominence at the age of 19 when he gave a speech on the floor of the Iowa House of Representatives defending the right of two mothers to marry.
Opinion polls show both candidates have a chance of winning.
A poll conducted by Democratic pollster GBAO from March 10 to March 16, which gave voters positive and negative messages about each candidate, found Walls and Turek trailing Hinson by three and four points, respectively, but Turek led Hinson by one point.
An Echelon Insights poll conducted April 3-9 shows both candidates performing evenly with Hinson, with Turek leading Hinson by 1 point and Walls leading by 2 points in a head-to-head race.
Early voting is underway, and both candidates are making a final effort to get their messages in front of voters.
Josh Turek says: ‘We need someone with experience’
Turek says his plan was never to run for office.
“My goal in life was to win a gold medal,” he said. “My goal in life was not to be involved in politics.”
Alongside his basketball career, Turek has worked with people with disabilities at a mobility assistance company and a nonprofit that provides adaptive sports equipment to children with disabilities.
“I worked with people with progressive diseases like muscular dystrophy and ALS,” he said. “I decided to run for Congress because I saw a 1,000% increase in denial rates since Iowa privatized its Medicaid system.”
The fact that Iowa has never had a permanently disabled member of the Iowa Legislature was the final incentive he needed to run.
Turek will talk about how he won the Iowa House seat by six votes in 2022 and won reelection in 2024 with a nearly 6 percentage point margin with Trump leading the district.
“Honestly, I wouldn’t be here if my story, background and politics couldn’t move beyond the usual tribalism and resonate with independents and moderate Republicans,” he said.
That’s why he says it’s the best choice going into the general election.
“Zach, he’s a good guy,” Turek said. “I don’t say a lot of derogatory things about him. But he’s never even run against a Republican. He represents the Harris Plus 37 district. And I think if we’re going to win Iowa, we’re going to need someone who’s battle-tested and has actually been through this.”
Turek said his time in high-level sports gave him the discipline, dedication and work ethic to focus on his goals and shut out distractions.
“When I was playing in arenas, at least 50 percent of the people didn’t want you to win and were yelling at you,” he said. “What it taught me is to just keep my head down and avoid outside noise.”
When Turek campaigned for his first run to the Iowa House in 2022, he always kept one of his gold medals in his bag and dragged it up the stairs when speaking to voters.
He didn’t always take out his medals, but if there were children at home, he liked to show them.
“I wanted my children to know that I didn’t win the genetic lottery, that I went through a lot of adversity, that I didn’t grow up wealthy, and this is what I was able to accomplish,” Turek said. “So if you really put your head down and put in the work, you can do it too. This was really about showing the kids that you shouldn’t let your circumstances define you.”
Zach Walls says Democrats need someone with ‘the courage to speak truth to power’
In 2004, when Walls was in eighth grade, his first social studies assignment was to watch the Republican National Convention and submit a report the next day.
On the campaign trail, he told voters about hearing “the most powerful people in this country” talk about the war on terrorism, “and the next moment warning our country about the existential threat of same-sex marriage.”
“I remember watching these speeches and realizing they were talking about families like mine,” he said.
But when he went to class the next day, he said, “I was scared. And I didn’t have the courage I needed in that moment.”
Walls says she has never forgotten the embarrassment of being too scared to speak up.
That’s why he said he championed mothers’ right to marry in the Iowa state legislature in 2011. And it propelled him to the Iowa Senate and launched his U.S. Senate campaign.
Walls said his promise to Iowa voters is to have the courage to speak out and fight back, something he couldn’t do as an eighth-grader.
“I think a lot of people are looking for someone who has the courage to speak truth to power,” he said.
He said that’s what sets him apart from Turek.
“Iowans want a warrior who has the courage to challenge a broken system and a status quo that is ruining our state. I think that’s the core contrast of this race for Democratic primary voters,” Walls said. “I’m willing to fight back against an establishment that has failed Iowans time and time again. Rep. Turek is supported by that establishment.”
Walls has indicated he is ready to challenge his party, saying, “I have the scars to show for it.”
In 2023, Walls’ Senate Democrats ousted him from his role as minority leader after a controversy over the firing of two longtime staffers. Walls said at the time that he faced resistance from the party’s older conservative wing as he pushed for changes.
“It’s not an easy task,” Walls said May 6 at a Democratic forum in Des Moines. “I learned a lot in that time. I certainly would have done things differently, but I was able to apply what I learned from that to this campaign and hopefully to the United States Senate.”
Walls said he has built a reputation for putting the interests of his constituents first.
“What I want to say to you is that when it comes to voting, your job is to represent the people to the government,” he said. “Some people think it’s their job to represent the government to the people, but that’s not the job. The job is to do what you think is best for your constituents. I’ve built that reputation in the Iowa Senate.”
Candidates at odds over outside funding and support for Chuck Schumer
Both candidates have garnered significant support for their campaigns.
Walls is touting the support of more than 25 labor unions, 150 community and elected leaders in the state, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Turek said he has the support of more than 80 Iowa leaders, including two former primary opponents and former U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin.
And Mr. Turek has received more than $6.7 million in advertising support on his behalf from VoteVets, a Democratic-leaning PAC.
This is miniscule compared to the amount raised and spent by the candidates themselves. Mr. Turek and Mr. Walls each raised $1.12 million in the first quarter of this year, and as of March 31, had each spent just over $2 million throughout the campaign.
Walls accused Turek of receiving what he called “dark money,” claiming he had an affair with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
“For more than 20 years, VoteVets has effectively worked to elect veterans, national security professionals, and military families. We are proud to support Josh Turek because he knows firsthand the generational costs of war,” said Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton (retired), VoteVets senior advisor.
On stage at the Iowa Press debate, Walls noted that Schumer is the only Democratic candidate to say he would not support him as party leader if elected.
“Unless Congressman Turek wants to join me here tonight to make good on that promise,” he added.
Turek said he agrees with Walls that “we have to break away from being a corporate Democratic Party” and become the party of the middle class and workers.
“I’m not a D.C. insider,” Turek said. “I don’t know these people. There’s only one thing I think about this: They’re not measuring curtains.”
“I’m not going to beat Ashley Hinson with an answer like that,” Walls replied. “It’s a very simple yes-or-no question. Chuck Schumer’s leadership has let the Democratic Party down. Democrats have let this state down and they have let this country down. It’s too much to expect Iowans to be able to answer straight yes-or-no questions about the future of this party and our country.”
At a Des Moines Register editorial board meeting, Turek was asked if he wanted VoteVets to stop airing ads on his behalf.
Although he noted his inability to coordinate with the group, he said, “We are grateful to have support from everywhere.”
Both of his grandfathers served in World War II, and his father was exposed to orange blight while serving in Vietnam, which caused spina bifida, Turek said.
“My father’s exposure to defoliants in Vietnam is what gave me the disability,” he said. “And I think it’s an example of a generational effect where even if the bomb stops, that impact definitely won’t happen.”
Stephen Gruber Miller is the Capitol bureau chief for the Des Moines Register. He can be reached by email at sgrubermil@registermedia.com, by phone at 515-284-8169, or at @sgrubermiller.
