Democrat Patty Judge, a former Iowa lieutenant governor and agriculture secretary, will announce this weekend that she will run for Senate against Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the New York Times reported on Thursday.
The Des Moines Register later confirmed that Judge will launch a challenge to Grassley.
Judge’s entrance into the race would come as Democrats try to use Senate Republicans’ refusal to consider President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee as political leverage. Grassley is the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which would typically hold hearings for the nominee, and the Iowa senator has been adamant that he will not hold a hearing for Obama’s nominee.
Judge last week criticized Grassley’s approach to the vacancy on the Supreme Court.
“I don’t like this deliberate obstruction of the process,” she told the Des Moines Register. “I think Chuck Grassley owes us better. He’s been with us a long time. Maybe he’s been with us too long.”
