# Josh Turek Josh Turek is the Democratic nominee for Iowa's open U.S. Senate seat in [[IA-Sen-2026]], facing Republican [[Ashley Hinson]] in the race to succeed the retiring [[Joni Ernst]]. A two-time Paralympic gold medalist in wheelchair basketball, Turek has served in the Iowa House since 2023 and describes himself as a **"commonsense prairie populist."** ## The primary Turek won the June 2, 2026 Democratic primary against state senator **Zach Wahls** in a contest that mapped onto the party's internal argument with unusual clarity. Wahls ran as the anti-establishment outsider — explicitly rejecting Senate Democratic leadership, endorsed by Elizabeth Warren. Turek, the state legislator with the athletic biography, won anyway. That result is worth noting precisely because it inverts the pattern the same cycle produced in Maine, where the outsider-populist ([[Graham Platner]]) crushed the institutional pick. Iowa Democrats went the other way in the same month. Hinson had effectively secured the Republican nomination well before the primary, consolidating the field early with Trump's endorsement. ## The general election Ernst's retirement after two terms opened the seat, and Iowa's recent federal trajectory makes this a defensive hold on paper for Republicans rather than a competitive Democratic target. Turek's argument runs through the farm economy — the tariff regime, input costs, and commodity prices — rather than through national-culture framing. > [!warning] Race handicapping not verified > This page does not carry a current rating for IA-Sen. Check [[IA-Sen-2026]] and the raters directly before treating the seat as safe or competitive. ## Outside money against him: FEC Form 24 notices FEC filings list him under his legal name, **Joshua Turek**. That name is an alias here, because a separate "Joshua Turek" page was briefly created from those filings on 2026-10-03 and merged into this one on 2026-10-04. | Receipt date | Committee | Amount | Lines | File | |---|---|---|---|---| | 2026-10-02 | SLF PAC | $4,794,569.23 | 4 | 2016506 | | 2026-09-25 | SLF PAC | $4,623,590.77 | 4 | 2015242 | | 2026-10-02 | [[America PAC]] | $123,530.66 | 2 | 2016516 | That is **$9,418,160.00 from SLF PAC alone across two notices nine days apart.** See [[SLF 22.5M Senate IE October 2026]] and [[SLF 23.6M Senate IE September 2026]]. Every line recorded here opposes him; none supports him. [[AFP Action]] has also spent against him (see [[AFP Action 10.5M Senate Map IE October 2026]]), and [[IA-Sen-2026]] carries the running race file. The running aggregate on these rows ($23,439,876.64 on the October filing) is **not** an Iowa race total. The 2026-10-02 figure is a first read. ## KB significance Turek and [[Troy Jackson]] are the cycle's two clearest tests of whether an agrarian- or labor-rooted economic populism can hold a Senate seat for Democrats in states the party has been losing. Both are running into a trade war their opponents' party owns, which makes 2026 an unusually clean natural experiment about whether tariff costs move votes. ## See Also - [[IA-Sen-2026]] — the race file - [[Ashley Hinson]] — the Republican nominee - [[Joni Ernst]] — the retiring incumbent - [[Troy Jackson]] — the parallel case in Maine - [[Senate Leadership Fund]] · [[Independent Expenditure]] — the outside money