Zach Wahls joins field of hopefuls campaigning to unseat Joni Ernst

Iowa state senator from Coralville announced a run to take on Iowa’s junior US Senator.

State Sen. Zach Wahls (D-Coralville) ended months of speculation Wednesday morning by announcing he will challenge Republican US Sen. Joni Ernst for her seat in 2026. The 33-year-old from Coralville told Iowa Starting Line that he is framing his campaign around the economy.

“Hardworking Iowans aren’t getting ahead,” he said on our podcast, Cornhole Champions. “It’s being rigged to benefit those at the very top.”

Wahls added that  his family’s finances Are strained by daycare costs for his child.

He seized on Ernst’s recent town hall gaffe, where she responded to concerns about Medicaid cuts by saying, “Well, we all are going to die.” He called it emblematic of failed Republican leadership.

“That’s the Republican healthcare plan, right?” Wahls said. “I don’t think that waiting for your constituents to die is an acceptable course of action for a leader.”

As a state senator since 2018, he’s focused heavily on manufactured housing issues, championing what he calls a “Mobile Home Bill of Rights.” While he built bipartisan support for the legislation, it ultimately was stymied by the Republican-controlled legislature. 

Wahls said this was an outcome by special interest money. Groups like the Iowa Manufactured Housing Association lobbied heavily against the legislation.

“The problem wasn’t necessarily that this was like a partisan issue,” he said. “The problem is that the influence of money in our politics has become so overwhelming.”

Wahls brings name recognition from his viral 2011 testimony in which he defended his lesbian mothers at the Iowa Legislature, which helped galvanize support for marriage equality. 

He served briefly as as Senate Democratic Leader from 2021-2023. That ended when his own caucus voted him out over disagreements about changes he was making to its staffing.

Iowa Republicans now hold a 190,000-voter registration advantage, and President Donald Trump carried the state by 13 points in 2024. Iowa Democrats haven’t won a federal race since 2018, despite multiple, heavily-funded efforts.

Wahls points to Iowa Democrats recent overperformance in three special elections as a positive sign about the coming midterms. But special elections are not predictive of a midterm year. Still, Wahls believes its a sign that there’s momentum, that Iowans want something different.

He joins Marine veteran Nathan Sage of Knoxville and state Rep. J.D. Scholten (D—Sioux City) in the primary. More than a year from the election, all three candidates are focused on an economic agenda.

Meanwhile, Ernst, who, despite hiring a campaign manager, hasn’t announced her run for reelection. She is facing one primary opponent so far. Former state Senator Jim Carlin, an attorney and Army veteran. He ran unsuccessfully against Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley in 2022, criticizing him for certifying the 2020 election results, the same purity test he’s now applying to Ernst.

Wahls, meanwhile, has positioned himself as an outsider willing to challenge leadership “in both parties,” calling for term limits and banning elected officials from trading stocks.