Theresa Greenfield Pitches “Farm Kid” Upbringing In Senate Launch

Theresa Greenfield made it clear in her campaign launch video that she’ll go toe-to-toe with Senator Joni Ernst over who the real “farm kid” is in the 2020 Senate race. A small business owner who grew up on a farm in a rural Minnesota town near the Iowa border, Greenfield announced her anticipated Senate run this morning in a video.

“Some call this flyover country. Way too many in Washington fly over it and forget about it,” Greenfield says in the video. “Well, my family was into a different kind of flying. My dad was a crop duster. And farming was our way of life.”

Iowans deserve a Senator who is ACTUALLY going to fight for them, and put the people of our great state first. I’m a farm kid with farm kid values ready to fight for working people. That’s why I’m running for US Senate.
Join us today 👉 https://t.co/SlQHy6REbM#GreenfieldForIowa pic.twitter.com/F9QNm4reS3

— Theresa Greenfield (@GreenfieldIowa) June 3, 2019

“I’m a proud farm kid with farm kid values, and I’m running for U.S. Senate because I’ll never forget who I am, where I’m from, or who I’m fighting for,” Greenfield added in a press release.

Greenfield will first face a Democratic primary, one that includes fellow Des Moines small businessman Eddie Mauro and Des Moines attorney Kimberly Graham. But like those two others who have already announced, she kept her focus solely on Ernst in her kick-off.

Relating the story of how her husband, a union electrician, died on the job when they had a young child and one on the way, Greenfield mentions how important Social Security was to getting her family through that time. She then turns to knock Ernst for “talking about cutting Medicare and Social Security to pay for tax breaks for billionaires.”

A later scene sees her standing next to hogs on a farm, calling out Ernst for failing to make good on her famous 2014 campaign promises.

“Listen folks, she didn’t castrate anyone,” Greenfield says after Ernst’s “Make ‘Em Squeal” TV ad plays. “She cast a vote to let the corporate lobbyists keep feasting like hogs at the trough.”

A good part of the video features her on a farm, talking about her upbringing, which included dealing with the Farm Crisis of the 1980s.

“It was all hands on deck: feeding the hogs, baling the hay, but also working off the farm at a local canning factory and as a waitress,” she says.

The video itself is reminiscent of MJ Hager’s “Doors” video, a much-lauded launch video for a Texas congressional race in 2018. There is plenty of opportunity for Democrats to draw attention to Ernst’s reelection race, and this seemed design for just that.

Greenfield impressed many Democrats during her run for Congress in 2018 before a staffer’s actions caused her to miss the requirements to get on the ballot. She was the top fundraiser in the then-crowded 3rd District Democratic field when she was still in the race.

And there are Democrats in Iowa and nationally who like Greenfield’s profile: small-town roots and a small business owner (she is president of Colby Interests, a real estate company in the Des Moines metro).

Greenfield lives in Des Moines with her husband, and together they have four adult children.

by Pat Rynard
Posted 6/3/19