Recent elections have been brutal for Democrats in Iowa as their party lost support from white, working-class voters in a onetime swing state that Barack Obama won twice.
Republicans now hold every seat in the congressional delegation and every statewide office but one. The State Legislature, where Democrats competed for majorities less than a decade ago, is overwhelmingly Republican.
Yet on Tuesday, for the second time this year, a Democrat appeared to flip a conservative-leaning district in the Iowa Senate. According to preliminary results posted by county officials, Catelin Drey, the Democratic nominee, was leading Christopher Prosch, the Republican, in a district that includes much of the Sioux City area in northwest Iowa.
Michelle K. Skaff, the auditor and election commissioner in Woodbury County, Iowa, said Ms. Drey was leading by 11 percentage points, or nearly 800 votes, with all precincts counted. Ms. Skaff said there were two additional ballots, part of a program that allows victims of certain crimes to vote from home, that could be added to the total if received by Wednesday.
Iowa Democrats will remain vastly outnumbered in the State Senate, but Ms. Drey’s apparent victory was more than symbolic. Her presence in the Senate would strip Republicans of a two-thirds supermajority that had allowed lawmakers to confirm the governor’s appointees without any Democratic support.
Iowa Republicans have used their power in recent years to pass restrictive laws on abortion, immigration and transgender issues.
Ms. Drey is the founder of a left-leaning policy group called Moms for Iowa, which supports abortion rights and gun restrictions. On the campaign trail, she emphasized her background as a mother and called for making child care more affordable.
Mr. Prosch, a businessman, called for cutting taxes and removing “woke ideologies” from schools. He described himself as “a strong pro-life conservative” and said he agreed with President Trump’s push to curb illegal immigration.
Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican, called a special election for the seat in June after the death of State Senator Rocky De Witt. Mr. De Witt, a Republican who died from cancer, won his seat in 2022 by about 10 percentage points.
Iowa Democrats have looked to off-year elections for signs of political momentum with their party shut out of power in Des Moines and in Washington. In January, another Iowa Democrat, Mike Zimmer, flipped a formerly Republican State Senate seat in eastern Iowa.
Special elections can produce surprising results, often with low turnouts that skew heavily toward the most engaged voters. Early in Mr. Trump’s first term, for instance, a Wisconsin Democrat decisively won a special election for State Senate, only to lose the seat by a large margin in the next regularly scheduled election.
Still, national Democratic groups described the result in Iowa as a rebuke of Mr. Trump’s agenda and a sign of growing support for Democrats.
Ken Martin, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said in a statement that “when Democrats organize everywhere, we win everywhere, and today is no exception.” And Heather Williams, the president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, said that “Democrats’ special election wins should send a flashing warning to the G.O.P.”
Mitch Smith is a Chicago-based national correspondent for The Times, covering the Midwest and Great Plains.
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