Iowa Dems Break GOP Supermajority With Special Election Win

Democrats scored a special election victory in Iowa on Tuesday, flipping a Republican-held state Senate seat and breaking the GOP supermajority in the upper chamber.

Democrat Catelin Drey defeated Republican Christopher Prosch to replace the late Republican state Sen. Rocky De Witt, who passed away in June. Drey won 55% of the vote in a district that President Donald Trump carried by over 11 points in the November election, according to unofficial results from the Woodbury County Auditor’s Office.  

“For the fourth special election in a row, Iowa voted for change,” the Iowa Democratic Party said in a statement. “Our state is ready for a new directions, and Iowa Democrats will keep putting forward candidates who can deliver better representation for Iowans.” (RELATED: Judge Tosses Utah GOP Map Over ‘Partisan Gerrymandering,’ Orders Districts Redrawn) 

Tuesday’s election results leave the Iowa state Senate with 33 Republicans and 17 Democrats. Without a GOP supermajority, Democrats in the upper chamber will have the ability to block Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds’ appointments for state agencies, boards, and commissions.

Drey will serve the remainder of De Witt’s term until January 2027. The seat will be up for election again in the November midterms next year.

This marks the second time this year that Iowa Democrats have flipped a Republican-controlled state Senate seat. In January, Democrat Mike Zimmer defeated Republican Katie Whittington in another special election. Both victories came in districts Trump carried comfortably in the 2024 presidential election, in a state the president won by over 13 points. 

Democrats are framing the Tuesday results as evidence that Republicans are losing ground in the Hawkeye State.

“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,” Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin said, according to Fox 5 DC. 

Iowa GOP Chairman Jeff Kaufmann, however, downplayed the results. 

“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,” Kaufmann said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Kaufmann dared Democrats to bring back Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucus if they “think things are suddenly so great again for them in Iowa,” after former President Joe Biden and his aids moved Iowa out of the top spot in the presidential nominating process in 2023.

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