Republican Sen. Joni Ernst will not run for reelection in Iowa, sources say

Sen. Joni Ernst , R-Iowa, will not seek re-election to a third term, according to two people familiar with her decision, creating an opening for Democrats in their bid to regain control of the Senate.

Representatives for Ernst did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday. The people who confirmed her decision spoke on the condition of anonymity because the senator has yet to make an announcement. The decision was first reported by CBS News.

Iowa, once a swing state, remains an uphill battle for Democrats. President Donald Trump won the state in November by more than 13 percentage points and the last time a Democrat won a Senate race in Iowa was in 2008. Democrats, however, believe they have reason for optimism next year in a race for an open seat.

Rep. Ashley Hinson , R-Iowa, who has served in the House since 2021, is widely expected to run for Senate in Ernst’s stead, according to two Republicans familiar with her decision who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she has not announced a campaign. Representatives for Hinson did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday.

Even before Ernst’s decision, five Democrats had already launched campaigns for her seat, including Des Moines School Board Chairwoman Jackie Norris, state Rep. Josh Turek and state Sen. Zach Wahls.

At a Republican event earlier this month in Iowa, Ernst acknowledged the growing field of Democratic challengers but did not indicate if she would run again, only insisting her seat would stay in GOP hands.

“Every day we get a new Democratic member of the House or Senate that decides to run for this Senate seat. Bring it on,” Ernst said then. “Bring it on, folks. Because I tell you, at the end of the day, Iowa is going to be red.”

The reshuffled race comes amid recent signs of political headwinds for Republicans in Iowa, where Democrats this week flipped a state Senate seat in a special election, ending the Republican supermajority in the chamber.

On Friday, several of the Democratic candidates for Senate suggested that the special election upset was a harbinger for next year’s midterm elections. In separate statements, both Norris and Wahls said Ernst decided not to run again because she saw “the writing on the wall.”

“Iowans are fed up with rising costs and unchecked corruption. And next year, we’re going to flip this seat,” Wahls wrote on X.

Democrats need to pick up four seats to retake the Senate next year, which would require them to flip at least two Republican-held seats in states that Trump won last year by double-digits. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee started running ads last month in four such states – Alaska, Iowa, Ohio and Texas – and Democrats recruited former senator Sherrod Brown to run in Ohio.

Ernst was first elected to the Senate in 2014 and comfortably won reelection in 2020. She said last year that she planned to run for a third term but would have also been open to a position in a second Trump administration. During divorce proceedings in 2019, Ernst also revealed she was interviewed to be Trump’s running mate in 2016 but turned it down.

Ernst has periodically attracted scrutiny – and some backlash – during Trump’s second term.

Ernst, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, initially did not support Trump’s defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth, who faced an allegation of sexual assault, which he denied. Ernst, a sexual assault survivor who has led efforts to curb assaults in the military, ultimately voted to confirm Hegseth.

Earlier this year, an exchange at one of Ernst’s town halls went viral after the senator glibly dismissed one attendee’s concern that people who would lose Medicaid coverage under Republican legislation would die.

“Well, we all are going to die,” Ernst said then. “So, for heaven’s sakes. For heaven’s sakes, folks.”