U.S.
Charlie Neibergall/AP
DES MOINES, Iowa — “Mother. Soldier. Conservative.”
With those words — and a commercial about castrating pigs — first-term Iowa state Sen. Joni Ernst emerged from a pack of men to win the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate.
Ernst’s candidacy is important in many ways. It’s the first open-seat Senate race in Iowa in 40 years. Iowa is one of four states that have yet to send a woman to Congress. Many see Ernst and Democrat Staci Appel, who is running for the 3rd District’s open House seat, as the best opportunities to break that record.
And Ernst is the rare female conservative Republican in an arena where most women candidates are Democrats.
“We are not going to substantially increase the number of women in office without more Republicans that are running and winning,” said Dianne Bystrom, director of the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics at Iowa State University. “The growth in women in Republican politics is going to have to come from the conservative side.
Women currently make up 20 percent of the U.S. Senate, 18 percent of the U.S. House, five of 50 governors and 24 percent of state lawmakers, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.
Four of the five governors are Republican. But of the 99 women in Congress, only 23 are Republican, including four of the 20 female Senators.
Why don’t more GOP women run?
“This is the bazillion dollar question,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics. “A lot of people are talking about this.”
Democrats have established groups such as EMILY’s List to help finance campaigns and groups that train candidates, Walsh said. There are a few Republican political action committees to support female candidates, but they’re relatively new.
EMILY’s List has raised more than $28 million, including almost $3.4 million for Democratic female candidates, according to an analysis of data from the Sunlight Foundation. The conservative ShePAC has raised only about $51,000, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. That group held an April fundraiser for Ernst.
Walsh said more women identify as Democrats. Then there’s the ideological hurdle.
“Republican women tend to be more moderate than their male colleagues,” Walsh said. “It may make it harder for those women to make it through the primary because the electorate is so conservative.”
Iowa is one of four states that have never sent a woman to Congress (the others are Delaware, Mississippi and Vermont) and one of just two that haven’t elected either a congresswoman or a female governor (the other is Mississippi).
“What we’ve seen is a real gender gap in political participation in Iowa,” said Mary Ellen Miller, executive director of 50-50 in 2020, a bipartisan group trying to improve gender equity in Iowa.
Miller was mingling with other Republican delegates to the Iowa Republican Party convention on a June Saturday morning. She said she has been active in GOP politics for 50 years and twice ran unsuccessful campaigns for the Iowa legislature.
“The Republican Party hasn’t been as aggressive about recruiting women deliberately,” she said. “Democrats have done a better job.”
The group Miller leads is trying to change that, offering leadership classes to women and starting a leadership program aimed at middle school girls in the fall.
Getting a woman elected to Congress or as governor makes a huge difference.
“If a state elects a woman governor or someone to Congress, it tends to increase the number of women who run for state legislatures,” Bystrom said. “We’re in the same boat as New Hampshire was in 1996.”
But that year, New Hampshire elected a female governor. Today all the top offices in that state are held by women: two U.S. senators, two U.S. representatives and the governor.
This year 11 Democratic and eight Republican women are in the running for U.S. Senate seats. In open contests, in which challengers don’t have to overcome the (usually male) incumbents’ advantages, three of the women are Democrats, and three are Republicans. In one of those open races, in West Virginia, both major party candidates are women.
Then there’s Ernst.
“We haven’t had a conservative woman step up and run,” said Norm Hjelmeland, an Urbandale delegate at the Iowa GOP convention. “It’s nice that more are involved.” He voted for Ernst in the primary.
“I didn’t vote for her because she’s a woman. I liked her conservative stands, and I thought she would be the best choice to win the election.”
Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley and Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin have served a combined 62 years in the Senate representing Iowa. It came as a surprise to many in January 2013 when Harkin announced he wouldn’t run for another term.
That announcement set off a mad scramble of candidates. While Rep. Bruce Braley became the Democratic nominee with no opposition, Republicans watched an array of candidates consider the race, including Ernst.
“She was asked to run by lots of people,” said Bystrom. “I encouraged her to run.”
So did Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds, whom Ernst succeeded in the state Senate in 2011. Research at Rutgers indicates women typically must be asked and encouraged to run for office, unlike men who are more likely to opt to get into politics of their own accord.
And by the time Ernst announced her run in July 2013, the “mother, soldier, conservative” slogan was prominent on her website.
She ended up in a field of five candidates vying to run against Braley.
David Oman, chief of staff for two Republican governors who remains active in politics, joined Ernst’s campaign as volunteer finance chairman in March.
“After making dozens and dozens of calls, I realized people didn’t know any of these candidates,” he said.
Then came the ad. Titled “Make ’Em Squeal,” the ad introduced Ernst saying, “I grew up castrating hogs on an Iowa farm. So in Washington, I’ll know how to cut pork.”
The 30-second spot drew jokes from late night hosts Jimmy Fallon and Stephen Colbert. But the ad struck a chord with Iowans, where agriculture is a way of life.
“They saw an interesting person who had a compelling story,” Oman said. “And they wanted to learn more. And when they did learn about her background and her philosophy and her stance on certain issues, then it wasn’t a big leap to jumping aboard.”
Ernst went from a member of the pack to being considered one of two frontrunners. She garnered endorsements from former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and former presidential candidate Mitt Romney, among others.
And she won the June 3 primary with an overwhelming 56 percent of the GOP vote.
“I would say Joni’s success was her story and her passion for what she was doing,” said 50-50 in 2020’s Miller. “But she had very good campaign advisers and staff. That’s important when you’re running at that level.”
Polls have shown Braley in the lead, but a recent survey showed Ernst closing the gap, trailing among women but ahead among men. The race is rated as leaning Democratic by Cook Political Report.
But Ernst isn’t the only Iowa woman running for Congress this year.
Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks is making her third run at Democratic incumbent Rep. Dave Loebsack in the 2nd Congressional District, which includes Iowa City and is seen as solidly Democratic by the Cook Political Report.
“I think it’s great that the Republican Party has so many women in prominent positions on the ticket,” Miller-Meeks said. “This is the year. This is our moment and our time.”
Then there’s Staci Appel, a former state senator running for the 3rd Congressional District seat opened by Republican Tom Latham’s retirement. Her GOP opponent is Dave Young, a former Grassley staffer. The Cook Political Report rates the district, which includes Des Moines and southwest Iowa, a toss-up.
“Right now I’d say Staci Appel has a better chance of being elected than Joni Ernst," said Doug Burns, a co-owner of and political columnist for the Carroll Daily Times Herald in west-central Iowa. He said Ernst “is overbranding herself as rural. She hasn’t really connected to urban Iowa in a way that shows any kind of connection.”
With no incumbents for Appel and Ernst to unseat, Bystrom holds out hope that 2014 could be the breakout year for women in Iowa politics.
“In the 18 years I’ve been here, this is the most optimistic I’ve ever been that we’ll elect not one woman but two to Congress.”
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