Another intriguing Senate race is the one in Iowa. The state went heavily for Trump last time but the Democrats have a great nominee, Theresa Greenfield, who has held a small but consistent lead in the last polls for the last two months. Joni Ernst is a POS. All the Republicans in the Senate are (except maybe Romney) but she’s worse than most. Let’s send her home. Iowa is a state that Democrats usually won until starting about ten years ago. Let’s make it a Democratic state for the next ten.
Here’s a great article about Theresa Greenfield. She was widowed at age 24 when her husband was electrocuted at work.
At age 24, Greenfield was alone with a year-old baby, another on the way, and no income. It was two maligned entities, labor unions and government, that saved her.
On the phone with me, she repeats what she says at every campaign stop: “Social Security helped me put milk in the refrigerator, support my boys, and go back to school. I don’t want Joni Ernst to gut it.”
Let’s raise some money for Theresa Greenfield. This is a great pick-up opportunity.
MazeDancer
My niece, who lives in Iowa, and is a recovering Dem operative, cannot say enough great things about Theresa Greenfield.
Joni is on the ropes. And money can make all the difference.
waspuppet
Nah; he is too. There are gradations; if the worst people in national politics were Mitt Romney and Larry Hogan we’d be in pretty good shape. But they’re all POSes.
Villago Delenda Est
Joni needs to be sent, along with her breadbags, back to the corn fields.
Elizabelle
You do a great job highlighting these winnable races and excellent Democratic candidates.
In. And excited for Theresa Greenfield. Maybe will do some postcards for her.
frosty
You’re very persuasive, so much so that I’m going to donate whenever I see that Senate thermometer. Two down, I have to go back and find the one for Steve Bullock.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@waspuppet: says something about the times we live in that the most recent nominee of the Republican party voting to convict and remove the impeached president of his own party was a half-measure
Steeplejack (phone)
Re Romney:
DougJ
Thanks a lot, everybody!
gkoutnik
I for one will not complain if you have these things all over the site every day until November. We must win this.
debbie
Ernst must be terrified. NPR reported this morning that she wanted six debates before the election.
jonas
AFAIK, most of Trump’s China tariffs are still in place and China has done shit-all to buy more US commodities. Hopefully Greenfield’s really nailing Ernst and Trump over his calamitous failure of a trade war. Of course most farmers are happy to continue letting Trump kick them in the balls if it means they can watch a lib get owned while they’re writhing on the ground, but maybe enough will find the courage to stand up and say they’re not going to take it any more to put Greenfield over the top.
dmsilev
@Steeplejack (phone): Close, but not quite; even when he was the nominee, Rmoney wasn’t the worst Republican. He was, more or less, the average Republican.
Nelle
I will vote for Greenfield (I live in Iowa). But she is Chuck Schumer’s choice, first and foremost. If I hear one more commercial about her young widowhood as a qualification for Senate, I’ll scream. Schumer wanted a woman to run against Ernst. We had Mike Franken, an Iowa boy who retired as a Vice Admiral rather than serve under Trump, who was running. He worked in Ted Kennedy’s office, knows the Senate, coordinated the military response to Ebola, and at the time, spoke out against invading Iraq. He got slimed by Emily’s List and DC insiders. Millions were poured into Greenfield, whose experience is in a family real estate office. She’s never held political office. I suspect she’ll do as told by Schumer. Yep, a bit bitter here as we had a chance at first rate representation.
I hope Franken will run again in two years against an aging Grassley but he may move on.
I’m the Democratic neighborhood Get Out The Vote person and I’ll do my best to get Greenfield over the line. We have a fantastic county head of the the D party and are working neighborhood by neighborhood. The Iowa lege just made it illegal for the Sec of State to send out applications for absentee ballots to all registered voters (he did so on his own volition for the primary and the Rs aren’t having any more of that). Several counties are doing it for their counties, though.
It is worth the effort. I suspect some Charles Booker fans are going through a similar need to realign and a frustration at the outsize influence of DC in their primary. McGrath, though, brings more to the table than Greenfield. But we need this seat and I think we can get it. No purity pony here. Just a little venting.
cleek
the Sonic Youth reference earns you 500 cool points.
Another Scott
It looks like the stars weren’t aligned for her in 2018. Perhaps she’ll have the last laugh this time. Fingers crossed.
Donated.
Cheers,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@gkoutnik: If people don’t catch these in real time, you can find all of these fundraising posts in the sidebar, under Featuring, and in the hamburger menu on mobile. Look for Political Fundraising.
DougJ
Last year at my local butcher, the guy behind the counter told me I looked like Lee Ranaldo
gkoutnik
@WaterGirl: Great, thanks. I don’t use the various tools on the site as much as I should (tools, IIRC, you are largely responsible for?).
But also: I hope we can accelerate the sense of urgency that will be essential to our saving our democracy. We all need to be out every day, doing the democratic equivalent of banging pots and pans together, like being reminded to fund our candidates. If we don’t win the WH and the Senate, having some disposable income left over after election day won’t do any of us any good. From each according to his/her ability.
We absolutely must make sure that:
Everybody votes.
Another Scott
@Nelle: Thanks for the backgrounder. Yeah, it’s annoying that the national party organizations put so much emphasis on fundraising and pretty much ignores compelling candidates who end up in the shadow of a money machine. Of course money is important (as we see in this thread!), but…
Here’s hoping that she’ll keep her focus on what the people of Iowa want and need.
Cheers,
Scott.
Mike in NC
@Nelle: I’ve known Mike Franken for 40 years. Too bad the Dems went with Greenfield instead. I hope she can do it.
SuzieC
Done! And donated to Bullock too.
joel hanes
@Nelle:
Franken was the better candidate.
Had he declared earlier, he might have won.
Greenfield declared at the beginning of June 2019
Franken declared almost three months later, near the end of August, and was the fourth candidate to declare. By that time, a lot of resources had already been committed to Greenfield. Early money and early organizing.
rikyrah
Keep on bringing up thee goodcandidates
Turgidson
Rock solid liberal Tom Harkin being replaced by that daft wackjob was one of the toughest 2014 pills to swallow (and there were plenty that cycle). Flipping that seat would be second in excitement for me only to the long shot we have at knocking Moscow Mitch off.
Elizabelle
@Nelle: We will hope, then, that Mike Franken is EARLY for contesting against Chuck Grassley, two years from now.
Not everyone wins on their first try.
Mai naem mobile
@Elizabelle: Chuck Grassley is such a damaging POS. I wonder if he’s even going to run in 2022. He’s pretty old and on top of that he may not want to stick around if it looks like he’s going to be in the minority.
Ladyraxterinok
@Turgidson:
@Turgidson:
I worked for Tom in 74, when he was elected to the House. My 5yo son went with me to county headquarters. He had fun picking up paper scraps
Tom lost his House race in 72, but his wife Ruth was elected the 1st female County Atty in Story Co. It was a yrs long joke that she won office before he did.
Ruth was so impressive that the next county atty was also a woman
Elizabelle
@Mai naem mobile: Grassley’s ancient. Enough.
Nelle
@Mike in NC: We need to make sure she wins. Franken was publicly incredibly gracious, but she refused to condemn the dishonest and nasty ads run against him. I had thought better of Emily’s List than what they showed us here.
Aaron
Can we get a shout out for a Democrat running for Senate in South Dakota? Mike Rounds is weak and Dan Ahlers has experience winning in a State Legislative district even redder than the state as a whole. You can find more about Dan’s story here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKWGeiUJWEU
And watch his first ad here: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/ahlersad1
Thanks!
J R in WV
@Nelle:
We used to contribute to Emily’s List, but no more! We’ve had enough of committees deciding how to spend our money, and raking off the top to pay people to make up our minds for us.
Fuq that crap!!! We know how to contribute to candidates, and do so. Donated to MS Senator Duckworth in her first race, and many others many of whom won, Not all, but most!