Democratic U.S. Senate candidates Josh Turek and Zach Wahls sparred Tuesday on past votes related to immigration, connections to \u201cdark money\u201d organizations and electability during a televised debate.<\/p>\n
The two candidates faced off on \u201cIowa Press\u201d for the first planned debate leading up to the June 2 primary election. Another debate hosted by KCCI and Gray Television is planned for 7 p.m. May 14.<\/p>\n
Both candidates indicated they expect the Democratic nominee to face U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson in the general election. Hinson, who faces a primary challenge against former state senator Jim Carlin, has led in fundraising and quickly gained endorsements from many high-profile Republicans in Washington, D.C., and Iowa after announcing her campaign when U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst said she would not seek reelection.<\/p>\n
Iowa\u2019s federal delegation is currently comprised of all Republicans, and Iowa Republicans hold a lead in active, registered voters. Turek, who represents Council Bluffs in the Iowa House, argued that as a candidate who won his state legislative seat in the \u201creddest district\u201d won by a Democrat in the 2024 general election, he was best suited to win back the U.S. Senate seat.<\/p>\n
\u201cI outperformed the top of the ticket by Trump by 50%, more than any other Democrat in the state,\u201d Turek said \u201cAnd Zach comes from a Harris plus-38 district, and has never even run against a Republican. I\u2019m battle-tested. I know what it takes to win, and there\u2019s something specific about my story, my background, my resume, and my politics focusing on \u2018prairie populism\u2019 that has a unique ability to be able to resonate with independents and moderate Republicans. I think that this isn\u2019t the election that we that we just leave up to chance. Zach hopes he can win, I know I can win.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wahls, a state senator from Coralville, said as someone who rose to prominence in Iowa politics as he spoke on the Iowa House floor in 2011 against a proposed constitutional amendment to ban recognition of same-sex relationships, he has been willing to take on \u201csome very difficult fights.\u201d Some of those fights include challenging other Democrats, he said, and said his U.S. Senate campaign has gained support from Democrats, independents and Republicans.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is the coalition that we need to win, and it\u2019s resonating, because Iowans understand that the toughest fights in Washington aren\u2019t always just about left versus right,\u201d Wahls said. \u201cThey are about right versus wrong. And Iowans understand that it takes real courage sometimes to fight your own party. And in the Iowa Legislature, I\u2019ve been willing to take on people in both parties to do what I think is right. That is the courage that we need to win. That is how we\u2019re going to defeat Ashley Hinson.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before getting to the general election, candidates must first win support from registered Democrats in the June 2 primary. One of the major topics discussed at the debate was immigration policy. Wahls said, \u201cRep. Turek and I do have a very different record on this topic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wahls highlighted Turek\u2019s vote to support Senate File 2340 in 2024, a law making illegal immigration a state crime in Iowa and allowing state officials to carry out certain immigration law enforcement actions. Wahls said groups from the ACLU to the Catholic church came to the Iowa Capitol to ask lawmakers to oppose the measure. He said the bill would have required Iowa law enforcement take on immigration enforcement actions that are in the purview of the federal government, as well as requiring they work with agencies such as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).<\/p>\n
\u201cI listened to those groups, I spoke out during the debate, and I voted against that bill,\u201d Wahls said. \u201cRep. Turek was one of only three Democrats to vote with Republicans on passing that bill into law. I think that was the wrong vote. \u2026 And so what I tell the folks who are watching at home is that this is a place where there\u2019s a real disagreement in our record. And in the United States Senate, I will fight to make sure that we fix this broken immigration system, that we overhaul ICE and that we have a pathway to legal status for people who are in this country who have not committed violent crimes and who are willing to go through a full process of paying any back taxes that they owe, learning English, making sure that they pay a penalty and go through the system.\u201d<\/p>\n
Turek said Wahls\u2019 characterization of his vote was \u201cleaving out important details,\u201d including that he voted to support the measure when former President Joe Biden was in office, as well as that the measure would only apply to individuals who had first come to the country legally and already faced a deportation order.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an issue that\u2019s deeply personal to me,\u201d Turek said. \u201cI am married to an immigrant. I have gone through the process, and three things can be true. One, we absolutely need fundamental reforms to ICE \u2026 because what we are seeing right now is inhumane and it is un-American. But two, we can also recognize (that) these aren\u2019t mutual, exclusive ideas, that we need to have safe and secure borders, but we also need to have a far easier pathway to citizenship.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tuesday\u2019s debate is not the first event to feature both candidates: In early April, both candidates answered questions at a forum hosted by Progress Iowa and End Citizens United about the influence of \u201cdark money\u201d in politics. At that event, Wahls had criticized Turek because a super PAC, VoteVets, had advertised on his behalf. The PAC has received money in the past from fundraising organizations aligned with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.<\/p>\n
VoteVets typically supports candidates who are military veterans. While Turek, a Paralympian who has won two gold medals as a wheelchair basketball player, is not a veteran, he has said his father\u2019s exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam led to him being born with spina bifida.<\/p>\n
The role of super PACs in the Senate race was brought up again at the debate as Wahls pointed to VoteVets\u2019 spending, linking Turek\u2019s campaign with support for current Senate Democratic leadership.<\/p>\n
\u201cSen. Schumer is trying to come into Iowa, trying to buy an election to the tune of $6.7 million and climbing,\u201d Wahls said. \u201cAnd the reason \u2026 why this is so frustrating to me is that when we talk about how we can win in this state, we are going to have to be honest with voters about the failures of leaders in both parties.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wahls asked Turek if he would vote for Schumer as Senate Democratic leader if elected in 2026. Turek did not say if he would or would not vote for Schumer, but emphasized, \u201cI\u2019m not a D.C. insider, I don\u2019t know these folks.\u201d<\/p>\n
If elected, Turek said, he would vote for whoever is running for leadership based on their answer to four questions \u2014 what they plan to do for Iowans, what they plan to do for the middle class, what they\u2019ll do about \u201ccorruption\u201d in politics, and if they align with his \u201cprairie populist\u201d agenda related to increasing the minimum wage, making housing and healthcare affordable, and improving water quality.<\/p>\n
Turek also hit back, saying that Wahls was the \u201cdark money\u201d aligned candidate as a person who was formerly the \u201cdirector of a dark money PAC,\u201d as the executive director of The Next 50 based in New York, as well as pointing to Wahls accepting $250,000 in campaign contributions when he was the state Senate minority leader later tied to executives at FTX, a now bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange. Wahls was removed from the Senate leadership position in 2023 amid other conflicts within the caucus.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen he was in leadership, he took $30,000 \u2014 five times more than any other person in minority leadership,\u201d Turek said. \u201cI didn\u2019t even take reimbursement for my gas mileage. He was the director of a dark money PAC. I\u2019ve been the director of a nonprofit organization for disabled kids. We are not the same.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wahls said Turek\u2019s claims were \u201ccategorically false.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd look, it\u2019s absolutely true that when I was the minority leader, we were the victims of a fraudster,\u201d Wahls said. \u201cAnd that person was brought to justice, and that is absolutely what should have happened. It was a terrible situation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Democratic U.S. Senate candidates Josh Turek and Zach Wahls sparred Tuesday on past votes related to immigration, connections…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61665,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[145],"tags":[32082,504,36541,16043,12001,883,1065,383,36543,36544,18293,11301,51,3665,12000,17,11999,13047,36542],"class_list":{"0":"post-61664","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chuck-schumer","8":"tag-ashley-hinson","9":"tag-chuck-schumer","10":"tag-dark-money","11":"tag-debate","12":"tag-democratic-party-united-states","13":"tag-election","14":"tag-elections","15":"tag-government","16":"tag-immigration-to-the-united-states","17":"tag-independent-politician","18":"tag-iowa","19":"tag-joni-ernst","20":"tag-politics","21":"tag-politics-of-the-united-states","22":"tag-republican-party-united-states","23":"tag-united-states","24":"tag-united-states-house-of-representatives","25":"tag-united-states-senate","26":"tag-votevets-org"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116535999119794304","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61664\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}