Former Iowa governor and former agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack won’t run for Senate in 2020, depriving Democrats of a top recruit to challenge Republican Sen. Joni Ernst as they try to carve out a viable path to winning a Senate majority.
A Vilsack adviser relayed his decision Friday in a Des Moines Register interview.
Tom Vilsack, 68, served as Iowa governor from 1999 to 2007. He made a brief Democratic presidential bid for the 2008 nomination but dropped out before the end of February 2007. Though Vilsack then supported Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, her rival, Barack Obama, nominated him for agriculture secretary after winning in November 2008. Vilsack held that role for nearly all of Obama’s eight years in office.
Vilsack has maintained broad popularity among Iowa residents, according to public opinion polls. But Vilsack likely would have faced a tough tight against Ernst, first elected in 2014. Ernst has largely voted with President Trump during his two-plus years in office, and Democratic operatives are eager to find a viable opponent.
Trump won Iowa in 2016 by a 51-41 margin, after several cycles in which it was deemed a swing state. But in 2018, Democratic candidates defeated two House Republican incumbents, suggesting the Hawkeye State is more evenly divided politically than it appeared after Trump’s win.
Democrats would need to win at least three Senate seats in 2020 to overcome their current 47-53 deficit against Republicans in the chamber. They’re eyeing potential pickups in Colorado, Arizona, North Carolina, and Maine, among other states, though the election map is fluid more than 20 months out from Election Day.
One potential Democratic opponent against Ernst is J.D. Scholten, who in 2018 held GOP Rep. Steve King to his closest general election race of a 16-year congressional career. A former minor league baseball pitcher, Scholten hammered King in the Eastern Iowa district over what he called racially-tinged rhetoric.
House Republican leaders have since stripped King of his committee assignments, and he has drawn three Republican primary opponents. That wildcard situation in the district could point Scholten to a statewide bid against Ernst — a potentially high-risk-high-reward effort if political fortunes blow the Democrats’ way nationally in 2020.
