Iowa Democrat Announces Senate Run to Unseat Republican Joni Ernst

The bid comes after Sen. Ernst’s comments about Medicaid at a town hall.

The U.S. Capitol building in Washington on May 19, 2025. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

Iowa state Rep. J.D. Scholten has launched a campaign to unseat Republican U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst, citing recent comments Ernst made about Medicaid as a tipping point.

Scholten, a Democrat representing parts of Sioux City, confirmed his candidacy to multiple Iowa news outlets on Monday, just days after telling followers on social media that he was “seriously considering” challenging Ernst, who will face reelection in the 2026 midterms.

Scholten said in a June 2 Instagram video announcing his Senate bid that he “just can’t sit on the sidelines after Joni’s recent town hall justifying gutting Medicaid because, ‘We’re all going to die.’”

At a May 30 town hall in Parkersburg, Ernst responded to a question about the GOP’s cuts to federal spending on Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or food stamps, under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

The proposed spending cuts would be implemented partly in the form of stricter eligibility requirements, including legal residency in the United States as well as work, volunteer, or study requirements for able-bodied adults of at least 80 hours per month, or an average of 20 hours per week.

When someone in the audience interrupted to shout, “People will die!” because of the proposed changes, Ernst replied: “People are not—well, we all are going to die. For heaven’s sakes, folks.”

Ernst later posted an apology video on Instagram, which has now been deleted, saying she made an “incorrect assumption” that everyone at the event understood the inevitability of death.

“So I apologize,” she said. “And I’m really, really glad that I did not have to bring up the subject of the tooth fairy as well.”

At the town hall, Ernst said that the goal is to make sure that only people who are eligible for those federal programs get the benefits.

“What you don’t want to do is listen to me when I say that we are going to focus on those that are most vulnerable,” she told the crowd. “Those that meet the eligibility requirements for Medicaid, we will protect them. Medicaid is extremely important here in the state of Iowa. If you don’t want to listen, that’s fine.”

Part of the controversy centers on proposed changes to how much the federal government contributes to Medicaid.

Currently, the federal government pays between 50 and 77 percent of Medicaid expenses for traditional enrollees, and 90 percent for those added under the Affordable Care Act’s expansion, which loosened eligibility requirements and was adopted by 40 states, including Iowa.

The House-passed budget reconciliation bill lowers the federal matching rate for the expansion population if their state provides comprehensive health coverage to illegal immigrants, except for children and pregnant women. Estimates by the Congressional Budget Office put the potential federal Medicaid cuts at $860 billion over the next 10 years if all states refused to comply with the immigration requirements.

As for SNAP, the bill would limit the beneficiaries to U.S. citizens only, which the CBO said would reduce federal spending by an estimated $285.7 billion over the same 10-year period. In addition, only parents with children under age 7 would be exempt from the program’s work requirements, a significant change from the current policy that exempts parents with children under 18.

Ernst, who will seek a third term next year, was reelected in 2020 by a seven-point margin. Republicans have long held Iowa’s Senate seats, and Trump carried the state by eight points in the 2020 presidential election and widened that margin to 13 points four years later.

Scholten is the second Democrat to seek party nomination to unseat Ernst. Nathan Sage, an Army and Marine Corps veteran, launched his campaign in May. State Sen. Zach Wahls of Coralville and state Rep. Josh Turek of Council Bluffs are also considered potential contenders, although neither has officially declared their campaign.

On the Republican side, Joshua Smith, a Navy veteran and former Libertarian candidate for state Senate, has announced a primary challenge to Ernst.

Scholten’s Senate announcement comes one day after his professional baseball team, the Sioux City Explorers, announced on Sunday that he has been added to the active roster for the summer season. Scholten made his return as a pitcher for the Explorers last year after a decade-long retirement and has said he plans to continue through the fall.