AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTYou have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.After voting twice for Barack Obama, Iowa swung to the right. But the state has been hit hard economically and by Trump policies while growing disenchanted with its leaders.Listen · 4:17 min Supporters of Josh Turek, a Paralympian who won the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in Iowa, during his election night watch party in Des Moines on Tuesday.Credit...KC McGinnis for The New York TimesJune 3, 2026, 12:00 p.m. ETNo Democrat has won the governorship of Iowa since 2006. No Democrat has held a Senate seat here since Tom Harkin retired in 2014. All four of the state’s House seats are held by Republicans.Yet the combination of a struggling economy, President Trump’s policies and frustration with state leadership has Democrats hopeful of turning the Republican state back into the battleground it was when Barack Obama won it twice.Democratic primary voters on Tuesday chose the more moderate candidate running for Senate, Josh Turek, a former Paralympian, and elevated the only Democrat holding statewide office, auditor Rob Sand, to run for the office of the retiring governor, Kim Reynolds.Republicans rebuffed Trump’s endorsement of Representative Randy Feenstra for their party’s nomination for governor, picking a businessman and farmer, Zach Lahn, after a chaotic primary fight that revealed the state G.O.P.’s deep divisions.In other years, Iowa might not even be on Washington’s radar. The state voted three times for Mr. Trump, and its leaders have enacted some of the most conservative policies in the country on education, abortion and transgender rights. But the state’s economy has faltered over the past two years, and many voters say they want change. Mr. Trump’s tariffs raised the cost of tractors and fertilizers and upended the state’s vast soybean industry, which lost a critical trading partner in China during the trade war. Tariffs on steel and aluminum also hit manufacturers hard.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT