Iowa state Rep.Josh Turek has won the Democratic nomination for his state’s open U.S.
Senate seat, NBC News projects, advancing from a combative primary to a potentially competitive general election in a state that has favored Republicans in recent elections.Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.Turek defeated state Sen.Zach Wahls and will face Rep.
Ashley Hinson, the winner of Tuesday’s GOP primary, in the general election.Rep.Ashley Hinson, a Republican Senate candidate, in Marion, Iowa, on Tuesday.Stephen Maturen / Getty ImagesThe seat is up for grabs after Republican Sen.
Joni Ernst decided not to seek re-election this year.And despite a run of comfortable, double-digit wins for Republicans in Iowa over the last decade-plus, the race has emerged as a sleeper in the battle for partisan control of the Senate.
The Republican-aligned Senate Leadership Fund plans to spend $29 million on the battle.Turek, 47, a former Paralympic gold medalist in basketball, is backed by former Sen.Tom Harkin, whose “prairie populism” was a staple of Iowa politics until his retirement in 2014 led to Ernst’s election.“Iowans feel like they’re pushing uphill, and I know exactly what that feels like, because it’s working-class families like mine paying the price for Trump’s war and Washington’s corruption,” Turek said in a campaign ad that featured him pushing his wheelchair up an incline.
“In the Senate, I’ll take on Trump, and no one will push harder for change.”The biggest difference-maker in the primary may have been VoteVets.The outside spending group, which traditionally supports veterans, invested in Turek because of his backstory — he was born with spina bifida attributed to his father’s exposure to Agent Orange while he was serving in Vietnam — and spent $10 million on advertising, according to AdImpact, an ad-tracking firm.“Josh Turek — 21 surgeries by age 12, but he put ...