Iowa state Sen. Joni Ernst (R), won the race for U.S. Senate, defeating Rep. Bruce Braley (D-IA) and ending a long climb for Ernst where she began as a long-shot candidate behind Republican Mark Jacobs and ended up as a rare unity candidate with the support of both the tea party and establishment wing of the GOP.
The race was called for Ernst at around 11:32 PM by Fox News and NBC.
Her victory was culmination of a long road that started out with a divided primary where Jacobs, not Ernst, appeared to be the lead candidate. Ernst really caught national attention when her campaign aired an upbeat hog castration ad where she humorously argued that if she went to Washington she’d cut federal waste in the same way. Ernst was a rare Republican candidate who managed to win support of aggressive tea party-aligned outside groups like the Senate Conservatives Fund as well as more establishment aligned Republicans like Mitt Romney.
Ernst’s victory is a strong contrast from the beginning of the cycle where Braley appeared to be the de facto next senator from Iowa, succeeding Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA). But besides the fact that Ernst turned out to be a formidable candidate, Braley was weighed down by getting caught warning a group of trial lawyers during a close-door fundraiser that if Republicans took control of the Senate a farmer from Iowa —Sen. Chuck Grassley (IA) — would take control of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Republicans relentlessly hammered Braley on this point.
Democrats, meanwhile, aggressively tried to counter those attacks by highlighting Ernst’s far right positions: especially her spouting Glenn Beck’s “Agenda 21” conspiracy theories, her stances on Social Security, Personhood, and Obamacare. But polls Ernst managed to stay competitive in the polls nevertheless. One Democratic campaign official suggested that the reason Ernst wasn’t running away with the election was because of her far right positions.
“The reason he’s not getting blown out is because she’s an extremist candidate. [Republican] Terry Brandstad is winning by 11 or 12,” the official said. “The fact that Braley is still hanging around in an environment where there’s no gubernatorial side tells you that some people still have questions about Joni.”
Near the end of the race, Politico reported that Democrats had repeatedly approached Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) about donating a nest egg of $2.4 million to Braley instead of reserving it for a public policy institute at Drake University that would bear his name. Officials with the Braley campaign grumbled to TPM that that story was planted by Democrats in Washington to try and pressure Harkin to shell out more money, even though he had already been a team player for the Braley campaign.
“I think that the same people that released that information on Harkin are the same people that say Bruce has been a shitty candidate,” one top Braley campaign official told TPM. “And again they’re laying blame here and not in D.C. And it’s coming from DC.”
Another top Democratic campaign official was even more direct.
“First of all, the story is from D.C. and it’s from somebody at the DSCC and not from anybody in the Braley camp. I mean we’re not —we wouldn’t be pushing that story. Tom Harkin has been on a fucking RV for two days with Bruce Braley all over Iowa,” the second official said. “He’s in. He’s committed to the cause.”
But the official also said Harkin had to know that story would be coming since he was approached by top Senate Democrats twice.
“If you’re the DSCC — and I don’t think it was [Democratic Senatorial Committee Executive Director Guy Cecil], Guy’s too fucking busy for that,” the official said. “I think it was a deal where they just got fed up.”
