Democrats in Iowa are celebrating victory after flipping a state Senate seat to beat a pro-life MAGA candidate and break the Republican supermajority stranglehold in the state.
Catelin Drey beat Christopher Prosch, who believes rape victims should carry fetuses to term, in a district Donald Trump won by over 11 points in November.
The result broke a Republican supermajority in the Iowa chamber and showed that even apparently diehard Republican seats can sometimes be won. The win means the Dems now hold 17 seats, breaking the GOP’s supermajority of 33 seats.
Drey, 37, is a marketing executive and founder of the left-leaning grassroots organization Moms for Iowa. They champion reproductive rights, including access to abortion, restrictions on guns to curb violence, and an increase in state education.
In preliminary unofficial results, Drey scored 55 percent of the vote, over Republican candidate Christopher Prosch’s 44 percent.
A self-described “strong pro-life conservative,” Prosch also believes Joe Biden stole the 2020 presidential election, and that climate change is a “a lie.”
On a podcast two years ago, he compared the Holocaust with abortion rights. “Who was worse?” he asked. “The Nazi Germans who killed 10 million Jews and many other people? Or the left’s policies to target an entire generation of babies to death.”
The election was held after the death of Republican senator Rocky De Witt in June. In the past, Iowa Republicans have passed restrictive laws on transgender issues, immigration, and abortion rights.
After Drey’s win, DNC Chair Ken Martin said in a statement, “Iowans are seeing Republicans for who they are: self-serving liars who will throw their constituents under the bus to rubber-stamp Donald Trump’s disastrous agenda — and they’re ready for change.”
Martin continued, “They are putting Republicans on notice and making it crystal clear: any Republican pushing Trump’s unpopular, extreme agenda has no place governing on behalf of Iowa families. Make no mistake: when Democrats organize everywhere, we win everywhere, and today is no exception.”
Democratic campaign leader Heather Williams, “As Trump and Republicans wreck the economy and erode democracy with power-grabbing schemes, Democrats’ special election wins should send a flashing warning to the GOP: voters are rejecting the failing MAGA agenda and leaving Republican candidates in the dust.”
She added, “More special elections are right on the horizon, and we’re just getting started.”
Commenting on the loss, Iowa GOP Chairman Jeff Kaufmann posted on X, “National Democrats were so desperate for a win that they activated 30,000 volunteers and a flood of national money to win a state senate special election by a few hundred votes. ”
He continued, “If the Democrats think things are suddenly so great again for them in Iowa, they will bring back the caucuses.”
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