Could Iowa Democrats Win 2026’s Gubernatorial and US Senate Races?
Iowa has had open seats for governor and the U.S. Senate in just two of the previous 30 cycles in which both offices have been on the ballot since 1914
Iowa Democrats landed their preferred gubernatorial candidate this cycle when Auditor Rob Sand – the only party member currently holding statewide office – entered the race more than a year ago; Sand won Tuesday’s primary without opposition.
Yesterday’s primary also saw Democratic State Representative Josh Turek soundly defeat State Senator Zach Wahls, arguably giving the party its best shot at winning its first U.S. Senate seat since Tom Harkin in 2008.
On the Republican side, three-term U.S. Representative Ashley Hinson coasted as expected to win the U.S. Senate nomination by nearly 50 points over former State Senator Jim Carlin while farmer Zach Lahn turned heads by notching a narrow plurality win over three-term U.S. Representative Randy Feenstra in the race for governor.
Although the party has lost its footing in the Hawkeye State in recent cycles, Democrats are as well-positioned now to sweep the offices of governor and U.S. Senate as they could possibly hope for in the GOP-leaning state, with both offices landing on the ballot during the midterms of a Republican president who is currently enduring very low approval ratings.
Additionally, Iowa is in the rare position of electing candidates to both of these seats in 2026 without an incumbent on the ballot.
That has occurred in only two of 30 cycles in Iowa since the country began electing U.S. Senators directly in 1913.
The first such election took place in 1960 when Republican U.S. Senator Thomas Martin retired after one term and two-term Democratic Governor Herschel Loveless opted to run instead for Martin’s seat – thus opening up both seats.
Republicans won each seat in competitive races: GOP State Senator Jack Miller defeated Loveless by 3.8 points and Republican Attorney General Norman Erbe beat sitting Lieutenant Governor Edward McManus by 4.3 points. Richard Nixon carried Iowa by 13.5 points at the top of the GOP ticket.
Similarly, at the end of the decade in 1968, four-term GOP U.S. Senator Bourke Hickenlooper retired, prompting Democratic Governor Harold Hughes to run for the open seat.
In this case, Democrats flipped the open U.S. Senate seat with Hughes eking out a 0.6-point win over State Representative David Stanley but the GOP took back the governorship with former state party Chairman Robert Ray defeating Treasurer Paul Franzenburg by 8.2 points.
So how unusual would it be for Democrats to pull off wins in these two offices in 2026?
Democrats have simultaneously notched victories in elections for governor and U.S. Senator in just three of these 30 cycles since 1914, with two instances occurring during major national landslides.
In 1932, Republican U.S. Senator Smith Brookhart lost his party’s nomination (and ran in the general as a Progressive) while former Democratic Dubuque newspaper editor Louis Murphy easily defeated GOP businessman Henry Field of Shenandoah by 13.9 points.
In the race for governor, former Des Moines Ford dealer Clyde Herring unseated one-term incumbent Dan Turner by 5.5 points.
Four years later, with Franklin Roosevelt again at the top of the ticket, Lieutenant Governor Nelson Kraschel scratched out a 0.2-point victory against State Senator George Wilson to become governor while Democrats swept general and special elections for the U.S. Senate behind two-term U.S. Representative Guy Gillette and the aforementioned Governor Herring.
It would take another 66 years – after 17 failed attempts – for Democrats to again win each of these offices during the same cycle.
In 2002, the party accomplished this feat behind popular incumbents: Governor Tom Vilsack won a second term and U.S. Senator Tom Harkin was reelected to his fourth.
But if Democrats should lose both races in 2026 as well as fail to win any of the offices of auditor, attorney general, secretary of state, treasurer, and secretary of agriculture, it would mark the first time the party did not hold a single statewide office since the Election of 1954.
During that cycle, the GOP swept the offices of governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, auditor, attorney general (in special and general elections), treasurer, secretary of agriculture, and commerce commissioner, plus three seats to the supreme court and one to the U.S. Senate (already holding the other seat in the chamber).
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– Guy Mark Gillette also has the distinction of being one of two Hawkeye Democrats to have served two full terms and won re-election – in both 1938 and 1948, albeit the latter as former occupant (at least some news organizations falsely state that only “Tom” Harkin among its Democrats has won re-election to the Senate; shame!).
– Befitting its traditional R lean, only in 1974 – another banner year for the party – has a Senate seat been handed off from one Democrat to another Democrat. Surprisingly, Republicans have not done much better; the most recent occasion a Republican was succeeded by another from this seat was in 1960, when Miller succeeded Martin, as mentioned in the text.
– The state arguably deserves its historic reputation for contrarian voting; nationally, 2002 was a good if not great year for the Republicans (the “rally ’round the flag” effect in the wake of 9/11) whereas 1954 was a splendid year for the Democrats nearly everywhere else, benefitting considerably from anti-McCarthyism sentiment.
– The post of auditor does not need to be “flipped”. Indeed, it would be ironic if the Democrats manage to snag away the higher-profile offices of governor, attorney general, representative for CD-1, representative for CD-3, and US senator (class 2) but let the auditor post – won in both 2018 and 2022 – slip away.
– RE Gillette: True, as even the state’s first two US Senators (George Jones and Augustus Dodge, both Democrats) only served partial terms after statehood prior to winning their second term.
– One suspects if Biden had not been elected in 2020 that long-serving AG Tom Miller and Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald would have prevailed for at least one more term in 2022 (each losing by very modest margins).
(unrelated) Hilda Solis (D-Calif.), who was U.S. labor secretary under President Obama and who is currently a supervisor of Los Angeles County, won her primary on Tuesday in a safe Democratic seat and is thus almost assured of returning to the U.S. House, where she previously served from 2001 to 2009.
This would make for a nearly 18-year hiatus in U.S. House service, which would be a state record as far as I can tell. Among previous U.S. representatives from California who served non-consecutive terms, I found Denver S. Church (1913-19 & 1933-35) and Dan Lungren (1979-89 & 2005-13), with hiatuses of 14 and 16 years, respectively. Of course, two current U.S. House members have had even longer interruptions in service:
*Kweisi Mfume (D-Md., 1987-96 & 2020-present), 24 years; and
*Cleo Fields (D-La., 1993-97 & 2025-present), 28 years.
Other examples I can think of include:
*Jeannette Rankin (D-Mont., 1917-19 & 1941-43), 22 years;
*Matthew M. Neely (D-W.V., 1913-21 & 1945-47), 24 years;
*James Michael Curley (D-Mass., 1911-14 & 1943-47), 29 years;
*Rick Nolan (D-Minn., 1975-81 & 2013-19), 32 years;
*Philip F. Thomas (D-Md., 1839-41 & 1875-77), 34 years.
Moreover, Solis follows Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) in the House -> Cabinet -> House pathway. She would in fact be the third former cabinet official in recent years to serve in the House, after Zinke and Donna Shalala (D-Fla.).