Iowa Democrats flip Senate seat in special election to cut into Republican majority

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/elections/2025/01/28/iowa-democrats-flip-senate-seat-in-special-election-chris-cournoyer/77999519007/

20 comments

  1. And this is a seat that Trump won by 21 points! So flipping this seat is pretty wild. The electoral reaction against Trump is already starting strong. Let’s hope this is a sign that 2026 will be a blue wave of historical margins.

  3. A couple things:

    1. This confirms the Democrats are now the ‘high-turnout party.’ This isn’t 2010 where old Republicans voted and Democrats didn’t between Presidential elections

    2. Many ‘safe’ Republican Senate seats in places like Ohio are gonna be in play potentially, especially if Republicans pick MAGA candidates

    3. There’s a real chance that even in 2028, no one is able to drag MAGA voters to the polls like Trump did. JD Vance could suffer the same turnout collapse

  4. Iowa Senate District 35 is comprised of all of Clinton county and parts of Jackson and Scott counties. All three went for Trump in 2024

  6. This headline really needs to be clearer this is a state senate seat.

  9. Let’s see if he’s seated or If there are “legal challenges” . First preview test for the midterms

  10. Over the next 4 years its is going to be incredibly important for Dems to take as much control of state legislative chambers, governors and judiciaries as they can. Resistance to Trumps fascism on the state level will perhaps be the core to protecting democracy

  13. Can someone ELI5 what does this mean ?

    Does this help our situation as of right now, even by a tiny bit ?

  14. Amazing. Cutting off 72mil people from healthcare made people angry and vote the other way. Never would have seen that coming.

  15. up through 2012 the democratic candidates for president were winning rural counties in eastern Iowa

  18. I think you may be reading more into this than there is. Mike Zimmer is a man who worked as a teacher and later became school board president and ran a relatively normal campaign for senate and was well known and liked in his community. His opponent didn’t appear to have any relevant experience, didn’t show up to any events where both candidates were featured because she was “sick”, and would not respond to questions sent to her campaign from local news reporters. It seemed like she was just trying to run off endorsements from others.

    And the total vote count was very low for this special election, something like 4800 to 4400. The super majority for republicans in the Iowa senate is still overwhelming. (34 to 15)

  19. Dem swing of 21 points.

    Not that there’s going to be many more elections…..

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