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For years, Democrats have put up mostly token candidates against incumbent Iowa Republican U.S. Rep. Steve King, whose anti-immigrant sentiments and white nationalist associations have been shrugged off with an eye-roll by voters in his district as “just Steve King being Steve King.” But his free pass may well have been stamped.
Now, though, indications are that an increasing number of voters are seeing “just Steve King” as “major embarrassment Steve King.”
The eight-term congressman is facing his toughest re-election challenge yet. His opponent, retired professional baseball player J.D. Scholten, is within unexpected striking distance of pulling off a huge upset and giving Democrats a seat they hadn’t counted on in their battle to regain control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Even members of King’s own party turned on him Tuesday, a remarkable development given the stakes in the midterm election, now less than a week away.
And Scholten, a paralegal who specialized in immigration issues before returning to Iowa in 2016 to run his family’s farm, is a surprisingly durable candidate to take the 4th District.
Of the other three Iowa congressional districts, one is solidly Democratic and races are competitive in the other two. That means there’s an outside chance the tiny state, best known for its outsized influence in vetting presidential candidates in its first-in-the-nation caucuses, could be a big player in the midterms.
Scholten is still a dark horse in the race in the reliably Republican district with values that match those held by King, one of the most conservative members of Congress. But several recent developments have fueled speculation that Scholten could eek out a victory and end King’s long winning streak.
Irene Lin, Scholten’s campaign manager, told Patch the chances for an upset aren’t just wishful thinking in the mostly agricultural district with two big population centers, Sioux City and Ames. In the past, voters may have overlooked King’s bilious comments about immigrants and multiculturalism, LGBTQ rights, affirmative action and other issues because they share an interest in lower taxes, smaller government and a strong defense. But Lin says this could be the year voters say they’ve had enough.
“As J.D. says, it’s like they were talking about a weird uncle, but what we’ve seen is that his misplaced priorities are now actually hurting this district,” Lin said.
Several recent developments are driving the Scholten campaign’s optimism.
Change Research, which conducts polls for progressive candidates, said Scholten had pulled within 1 point of King, enough for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report on Tuesday to change its rating in Iowa’s 4th District from “likely Republican” to “leans Republican.” An early September Emerson College poll had given King a 10-point advantage.
GOP Campaign Arm Denounces King
But that poll, which had an error margin of 6.5 points, was conducted well before Saturday’s mass shooting at Pittsburgh put a spotlight on anti-Semitism in America. After the shooting — and a pipe bomb plot targeting about a dozen prominent Democrats — critics have called on President Trump, and Republicans like King by extension — to tone down aggressive rhetoric, saying it can spur unbalanced people to contemplate violence.
Republican leaders in the past have looked the other way when King espoused far-right, white nationalist views, but their tolerance for the Iowa congressman appears to be ebbing.
Ohio Rep. Steve Stivers, who chairs the Republican National Congressional Committee, which works to elect members of the GOP to U.S. House, denounced King on Twitter Tuesday, saying his “recent comments, actions, and retweets are completely inappropriate.”
“We must stand up against white supremacy and hate in all forms, and I strongly condemn this behavior,” Stivers said.
Stivers and the RNCC did not immediately respond to Patch’s requests for comment. Neither did King, whose campaign referred Patch to a statement on Twitter.
“Americans, all created by God, with all our races, ethnicities, and national origins — legal immigrants & natural born citizens, together make up the Shining City on the Hill,” King said in the statement. “These attacks are orchestrated by nasty, desperate, and dishonest fake news. Their ultimate goal is to flip the House and impeach Donald Trump. Establishment Never Trumpers are complicit.”
Unapologetic King: ‘They Know Where I Stand’
In the past, King has been unapologetic about his views and claims voters in his part of Iowa have been solidly behind him. And they have, for the most part. His closest challenge was in 2012, when he easily defeated Democrat Christie Vilsack, the wife of a popular former Iowa governor, Tom Vilsack, who went on to become President Obama’s secretary of agriculture. In that race, King won with 53 percent of the vote.
“I share beliefs with the super-majority of this 4th Congressional District as reflected by election results going all the way back to 2002,” King told the Des Moines Register. “They know I haven’t changed. They know I always give them the straight, truthful answer. I don’t equivocate. Some people don’t like hearing the straight, truthful, unequivocating answer. But they always know where I stand.”
Here is a sampling of what led to Stivers and congressional Republicans to distance themselves from King:
King recently retweeted a white nationalist candidate in Toronto, Canada, and outlined his white nationalist worldview with a far-right publication in Austria after Holocaust memorial group bankrolled a five-day trip to Jewish and Holocaust historical sites in Poland. In September, he shared a post by a Holocaust denier and argued incorrectly, according to fact-checker Snopes.com, that Nazis were part of a left-wing movement.
King has also displayed a Confederate battle flag on his desk in Washington and has questioned the historical contributions of “non-white subgroups.” This year, he sparked widespread anger when he mocked Emma González, the Parkland, Florida, school shooting survivor whose face has become synonymous with the #NeverAgain student movement demanding common-sense gun laws. King has also falsely claimed undocumented immigrants are responsible for the majority of murders and other violent crime in the United States, and has encouraged the U.S. government to spy on mosques to stop ISIS recruitment.
Donors Flee King Campaign
Those and other comments were cited by donors that have recently fled his campaign.
Minnesota-based Land O’Lakes, one of the most recognizable dairy brands in the country, said Tuesday its political action committee will no longer support King after customers threatened a boycott of its butter, milk and cheese products.
“We take our civic responsibility seriously, want our contributions to be a positive force for good and also seek to ensure that recipients of our contributions uphold our company’s values,” the Land O’Lakes PAC said in a statement. “On that basis, we have determined that our PAC will no longer support Rep. Steve King moving forward.”
The technology company Intel also said in an email to its employees in late October that it was yanking future contributions to King’s campaign.
“We had engaged with Rep. King because of his support of IP theft protections, which is important to Intel’s employees,” Dawn Jones, Intel’s director of policy and external partnerships, said in an internal email obtained by the website Popular Information. “However, an Intel employee raised concerns about the donations earlier this month. We looked into the congressman’s public statements and determined that they conflict with Intel values. As a result, we are no longer donating to his campaigns.”
Surprise Endorsement Goes To Scholten
Also, the conservative-leaning Sioux City Journal broke with years of tradition and endorsed Scholten, saying he is “armed with a willingness to consider all sides of complex issues such as illegal immigration and work across the aisle to identify solutions to problems” and “offers appeal for not only Democrats, but independents and Republicans, as well, we believe.”
“We say nothing about King today we haven’t said before,” the newspaper’s editorial board wrote. “Time and again in this space, we have criticized him for what we view as inflammatory or questionable comments and expressed concern about the impact of those comments on our district. Each time King immerses himself in controversy, he holds up this district to ridicule and marginalizes himself within the legislative body he serves, neither of which provides benefit to Iowans who live and work here.”
Lin, Scholten’s campaign manager, said King has lost touch with the true priorities of the district, the second-most productive agricultural district in Congress, according to a government report. He is a ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee, but was overlooked for the conference committee that will write a new farm bill.
“He’s not fighting for Iowa,” Lin said, pointing out that his hardline immigration policy is out of step with the interests of Iowa farmers.
“Grain elevators, farmers and pork plants all say we want and need immigrant labor and that they are contributing to the economy in Iowa,” Lin said. “Storm Lake is one of the few areas in the district that are growing, and that’s because of the large immigrant population. We’ve heard from businesses that he is now actively hurting this district.”
Among the farms depending on immigrant labor is a dairy farm in Sibley owned by the family of California Congressman Devin Nunes, a stalwart Trump supporter who supports immigration reform policies that would give amnesty to undocumented immigrants. A recent story published by Esquire alleged NuStar, Nunes’ family operation, employs undocumented workers.
King’s campaign appears to be on autopilot. Scholten has visited all 39 counties in the sprawling district, while King has held a few town halls and intimate gatherings with his supporters. He has refused to debate. And Scholten has already beat King in one measure that counts — fundraising. Since the last quarter of 2017, the Democratic challenger has raised $1.38 million, compared to $515,000 raised by the incumbent.
The Change Research poll also found that King’s approval ratings are tanking, with 38 percent saying the view him favorably, compared to 48 percent who said they view him unfavorably.
“Obviously, it’s creating huge momentum,” Lin said of the poll.
Iowa’s Other Congressional Races
The best chances for Iowa voters to flip a district from Republican to Democrat are in the 1st and 3rd Districts. The 1st District has traditionally been a Democratic stronghold, but Republicans won it in the party’s 2014 midterm election sweep. The reliably Democratic 2nd District is represented by Congressman Dave Loebsack, who is expected to easily defeat his challenger, Republican Christopher Peters.
In the 1st District, incumbent Republican Rod Blum was identified by Roll Call earlier this year as the most vulnerable U.S. House incumbent seeking re-election this year. Democratic challenger Abby Finkenauer is heavily favored, with a 29 in 30 chance of winning, according to the FiveThirtyEight political blog.
In the 3rd District, Democrat Cindy Axne, a small business owner and former state official is challenging Republican incumbent Congressman David Young, who won his first term in the 2014 midterm election. FiveThirtyEight says Axne is favored to win in the 3rd District, one of the battleground races targeted by Democrats for control of the House.
FiveThirtyEight also gives Loebsack the win, and hasn’t changed its projections in the 4th District, which it still puts in the Republican column.
Lead photo: Iowa Republican Congressman Steve King by Scott Olson/Getty Images: File
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