Ernst signals she’s ready to move on

I will never forget the day an elderly man named Delbert Block walked into the GOP Victory Office in Hiawatha. It was Sept. 5, 2014 — exactly 60 days before Election Day that year, when the impending retirement of Sen. Tom Harkin left an open seat for U.S. Senate in Iowa for the first time in three decades.

I was a regular volunteer in that office — this was long before my unplanned entry into the world of journalism. (Although no one from that office was surprised when the snarky blonde volunteer with an opinion on everything became an opinion columnist.)

I was certainly surprised, however, when Mr. Block told me upon arriving that day that he was there to meet the office director and pick up a list of addresses. It wasn’t every day a man his age took to the sidewalk to canvas for a political candidate.

“I’m 88 years old and I’m a veteran,” he told me, “And I think that Joni Ernst is just great. And I’m going to go door to door to get her elected.”

Mr. Block — or Del, as most people called him — was a longtime Republican. Prior to his death in 2023, he had spent many years supporting various campaigns and organizations and would continue to do so after 2014. But his last hurrah in active canvassing was in support of Joni Ernst.

He wasn’t able to knock on that many doors — he was 88, as he said, and not exactly a Chuck Grassley version of 88. But his determination prevailed over his age, just as the candidate he so passionately championed prevailed that November. Ernst, then a little-known state senator from a rural Southwest Iowa district, won what had once been seen as a long-shot race for Republicans by well over eight points.

Joni Ernst’s last hurrah

Over a decade later, Ernst is now on the cusp of her own last hurrah as a U.S. senator. On Tuesday, she announced in a video released by her campaign that she will not run for a third term in 2026.

It’s hard to say that the news came as a shock when speculation had been mounting for months. Ernst’s announcement that she had hired a campaign manager in early June did little to quell that speculation, which by then had kicked into overdrive after Ernst earned national scrutiny for sarcastically responding to a heckler at a May 30 meeting in Parkersburg.

The heckler, an Ionia resident who capitalized on the moment by announcing a campaign for Iowa House shortly after, had shouted “PEOPLE WILL DIE!” while Ernst was responding to a question about Medicaid changes the tax bill still being worked in Congress. Ernst had responded by saying, “People will not — well, we all are going to die. For heaven's sakes, folks.”

A ‘silver platter moment’

The retort was what I call a “silver platter moment,” as in a moment when a politician gifts their opposition with political material valuable enough that it might as well be handed to them on a silver platter. Ernst’s first opponent, former Congressman Bruce Braley, had his own silver platter moment in early 2014 when a video was released showing him disparaging Sen. Grassley as “a farmer from Iowa who never went to law school” to a room full of trial lawyers at a private fundraiser at which he likely knew he was being filmed.

Republicans seized on what Braley later acknowledged was “a mistake.” Democrats seized — expectedly so — on Ernst’s remarks.

But were those remarks actually a death blow to her re-election chances, as many have eagerly insisted?

We’ll never know now. But in hindsight, I see her sarcastic response at the Parkersburg town hall as an early sign that Ernst has perhaps been realizing a desire to move on with her career — and her life.

Arguably, it’s unusual. The power and prestige that accompanies the position of a federal elected official makes it very hard to give up. Most end their careers in one of three ways: Electoral defeat; declining a re-election bid to avoid likely defeat; or aging out, either by retiring after decades-long careers or pulling a Dianne Feinstein wherein their time on earth expires before their final term in office.

Were Ernst’s 2026 chances in jeopardy?

Reports of uncertainly over Ernst’s chances in 2026 were quite possibly overstated. Throughout the controversy surrounding the “we are all going to die” comments, polling experts continued to rate the race as “Likely Republican.” She was no stranger to intense races — her knockdown, drag-out re-election fight in 2020, which many had predicted to be a toss-up, ended in a 6.59-point victory over Democrat Teresa Greenfield, with a spread of over 110,000 votes.

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Why hang it up now, then?

Ernst is, as far as we know, in excellent health at the age of 55 — well below the average age of a U.S. senator. The Iraq War combat veteran and retired Lieutenant Colonel in the Iowa National Guard grew up castrating hogs on an Iowa farm. She rides a Harley, goes on ruck marches for fun and plays a decent baseball game. She arguably has plenty of fight left in her if she wants to stick around.

But life changes. Circumstances change. People change with them.

Life different for Ernst in 2025

When Joni Ernst first ran for U.S. Senate in 2014, she was a married mother of a high school student living in a quiet town, from which her legislative post was a two-hour drive.

By 2020, her daughter was a cadet at West Point. Details of a painful marriage had been consumed the previous year by a curious public through the news media as court documents revealed allegations of assault and infidelity. In her first interview after those details became public, Ernst also revealed in an interview with Bloomberg that she had been sexually assaulted by her then-boyfriend while she was a college student.

"What I want to remind everybody is that I'm still the same person I was a week ago," Ernst told reporters while fighting back tears after a January 2019 town hall in Cedar Falls. "The only difference is that you know more about me now than you did a week ago."

All of that preceded a brutal 2020 re-election slugfest.

It’s 2025 now. Ernst’s troubled marriage — and divorce — are in the rearview mirror. Her daughter is now a mother herself, having given birth to a son in early 2024. Her parents are getting on in years.

As her family “ages and grows,” as Ernst stated in her Tuesday video announcing her decision to retire, it shouldn’t be surprising that her career priorities would, too. The perks and privileges that come with the role of U.S. senator don’t seem as grand in tandem with the travel, the workload, the internal jockeying and the intense public pressure.

Especially in the second era of President Donald Trump, when civility is a shared responsibility that Democrats and their supporters appear to be no more interested in demonstrating than the man they claim is responsible for its demise.

Democrats’ joy could be premature

Democrats celebrating Ernst’s withdrawal as a boost to their 2026 chances may be doing so for all of about 30 seconds. In stepping away, Ernst takes with her the same material she placed on proverbial silver platter back in June. The Raygun T-shirts saying “We’re all going to die” won’t pack the same punch with a different name on the ballot.

Especially if that name is as formidable as that of 2nd District Congresswoman Ashley Hinson, who declared her intent to seek the seat hours after Ernst announced her retirement (and for whom I also campaigned in my pre-journalism days.) Or Matt Whitaker, the former Hawkeye football player and Acting U.S. Attorney General. Whitaker, who is currently the U.S. Ambassador to NATO, ran against Ernst in the 2014 senate primary. While his name has been floated for several years as a potential GOP senate candidate, he has not announced any plans.

On Friday evening, President Donald Trump announced his endorsement of Hinson on Truth Social.

Changing landscape in 2026?

We don’t always see politicians move on before they wear out their welcome with voters. In Iowa, we’re now seeing it twice. Ernst follows the lead of Gov. Kim Reynolds, who announced in April that she does not intend to seek a third term. The ballot will look a lot different in 2026 that we would have expected just six months ago.

Whether the partisan landscape changes is another story, one that hasn’t been written yet. But here’s one prediction I feel pretty confident in making right away: Iowa Republicans have no intention of letting Joni Ernst’s seat slip away. And that’s a fight for which they’ve been readying since long before last week.

Comments: 319-398-8266; althea.cole@thegazette.com

This article has been updated to reflect the President’s endorsement of Ashley Hinson for Senate.