Rep. Steve King has no committee assignments in the House after downplaying the horrors of white supremacy, rendering him practically powerless to move forward a legislative agenda and leaving him isolated from his GOP colleagues. But King is presently beating his primary challenger.
A survey from American Viewpoint, which was commissioned by King’s challenger, state Sen. Randy Feenstra, of Iowa voters, has the congressman narrowly winning in the 4th District. King earns 39% of the vote, compared to the Iowa state senator’s 36%, with 9% choosing a different candidate and 10% undecided.
The polling firm interviewed 350 voters and has a margin of error of 5.2 percentage points.
American Viewpoint remains cautiously optimistic that Feenstra can pull ahead in time for the June 2 primary.
“Defeating a longtime incumbent in a primary is never easy, but Feenstra is clearly in a position to do so over these final weeks if he has the resources necessary to finish out his campaign,” the firm wrote.
Much of the GOP establishment is backing Feenstra, including several PACs such as the Republican Main Street Partnership PAC. Some House Republicans, including Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the third-highest Republican lawmaker, called for King’s resignation last year.
Last week, the Republican Jewish Coalition announced its support for Feenstra and pledged to use its donor network to provide funding to his campaign.
Feenstra has outraised King in every quarter of the campaign cycle so far. On March 31, King’s campaign reported cash reserves of just under $27,000.
King has long held a reputation for holding controversial positions, but he lost party support in January 2019 after answering a question on immigration last year in an interview with the New York Times.
“White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?” King said.
He later released a qualifying statement, saying he disavows white nationalism and only considers himself a “nationalist.”
Later that year, King defended his position on banning abortion in the cases of incest or rape by saying much of the world wouldn’t exist without those acts.
“What if we went back through all the family trees and just pulled out anyone who was a product of rape or incest? Would there be any population of the world left if we did that?” he told the Des Moines Register. “Considering all the wars and all the rapes and pillages that happened throughout all these different nations, I know that I can’t say that I was not a part of a product of that.”
Following the controversy surrounding that interviews, King promised to run for his seat “unless I’m dead.”
“Even with that, and millions of dollars of media that was poured against me, some of it strategized, some of it organic, I don’t think anybody has faced such a nearly perfect storm as I have faced,” King told the Washington Examiner.
