Joni Ernst on the year of the Republican woman and her own second act

In the two months leading up to November’s Iowa Senate race, incumbent Ernst led Democratic challenger Theresa Greenfield in just five of the 16 polls reported by RealClearPolitics, giving the Republican barely more than a 1-point lead. Yet when the dust settled, Ernst beat Greenfield by more than 6 points. And she was not alone.

FiveThirtyEight gave Democrats an 80% chance of earning between 225 and 254 seats in the House of Representatives, with their average pre-election projection settling at 239 seats, which would have been a six-seat gain. With the dust still settling in a few close races, it’s looking like Republicans netted 11 seats in the House, leaving Speaker Nancy Pelosi with the slimmest control of the chamber in decades.

In Ernst’s estimation, Republican women won in both the House and Senate, because real women have much less gendered priorities than the media would have the public believe.

“They’re concerned about national security,” she said. “They’re concerned about making sure that our police are funded so they can protect our communities — all of those issues, healthcare issues, child care issues, having strong business and industry, because so many of them are small business owners.”

And, of course, the triumph of the Republican woman in Washington this year cannot be told without ignoring the one woman on the Hill who subscribes to no public political affiliation at all: Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

“The fact that she referred to no notes, took no notes, as she was moving through this grueling process, and to be able to clearly state for ideas or objectives, where she stood on different issues; it was really fascinating,” Ernst said of the judge’s confirmation hearings.

Barrett became the first woman on the bench with school-aged children, and her confirmation was advanced by Ernst and Sen. Marsha Blackburn, the first Republican women to serve on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Like the incoming crop of more than a dozen Republican women elected to Congress, Ernst launched her career as, well, her memoir aptly puts it, a daughter of the heartland. For years she heartily championed the women’s issues that eluded the headlines, including rape in the military and calling for investigations into notorious predators.

But with a single clerical error regarding her divorce papers in 2019, Ernst’s personal life became national news, with local news pouncing on her disclosure that her ex-husband Gail violently assaulted her.

“I think there is an assumption among a lot of people, especially as we move through the #MeToo movement, that, ‘Oh, every woman might want to expose something harmful that happened in her past,’” Ernst, who later revealed that she also survived a rape in college, said of the personal stories she never wanted to go public. “That’s just not true.”

Long before Ernst’s personal battles became public in the press, she emerged early in her Senate career as a champion of women’s issues. Despite ample attacks from pro-choice feminists, the ardently pro-life Ernst has authored multiple bills to ease the deregulation of oral contraceptives for over the counter access.

“I’m honestly surprised that it hasn’t happened prior to this,” Ernst says of her goal, which she admits takes pro-choice women traversing her town halls by surprise. “We’re going to be on opposite sides of [the abortion issue]. But if we can come together, and all of us agree that to prevent a pregnancy is much better than ending a pregnancy, then we should be supportive on contraception.”

Practicality is no struggle for Ernst, who likely cruised through what was supposed to be a struggle of a sophomore Senate race. Her salt of the Earth background helps her reach across the aisle to solve real-world issues. In 2017, Ernst co-sponsored legislation to combat sexual assault in the military with Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who Ernst eagerly names as a friend with whom she works or breakfasts. While Ernst cheekily admits that her rapport with Sen. Bernie Sanders may be reserved to formalities rather than legislative collaboration, Ernst has authored bills with Democrats ranging from relative centrist Sen. Jeanne Shaheen to liberal Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

“Dianne Feinstein and I were working on the Violence Against Women Act together until Chuck Schumer, kind of put his hand down and said, ‘You’re not going to work with Joni Ernst anymore,’” Ernst explained of the dispute about firearms provisions that the Republican had publicly explained at the time had to be hashed out to make it past the GOP-controlled Senate.

Ernst also has harsh words for Schumer regarding Feinstein’s curious decision to step down as ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“When Lindsey Graham and Dianne Feinstein were talking after the hearings concluded, and they were congratulating each other on a smooth confirmation process, the fact that Diane was working with Lindsey through the process — Schumer tanked her, said, ‘You won’t be the chairwoman if we get the majority,’” Ernst laments.

“That’s really pretty low to demonstrate to your Democratic conference that if you work with Republicans, I’m going to pull the rug out from under you, I think is a lesson that a lot of other members took away. And not a good one.”

Yet even as Beltway battles may appear more belligerent, luckily, even partisanship still seems to spare the personal. The same hasn’t stayed true down the dregs of the political ecosystem. Not two months before Election Day, the New Republic aimed fire at Ernst’s personal life.

“Joni Ernst survived an abusive husband. Her Senate career may not survive an abusive president,” read a since-deleted tweet promoting the screed against Ernst, headlined “Behind Every Man.”

“It really was a re-victimization of everything that I had gone through,” Ernst said of the piece. “And it was like, ‘You had a husband that beat you, but you stayed with him.’ And it’s like, yes, and I’ve seen many women that will go through this. In spite of everything, I loved my husband. I didn’t want to expose the failings in our marriage to the broader public. But to have the finger pointed at me and blame me for those episodes, to blame me for my rape, to blame me for staying with a man that I loved. If they can do this to me, they’re pointing the finger at every other woman, every woman that I saw come into the shelter in Ames. They’re saying, ‘Shame on you for being a victim and allowing yourself to be re-victimized.’ And it’s totally unfair, because obviously the writer of that crappy piece has not been in my shoes. Or maybe she would have thought twice about writing it.”

For all of her pragmatism as a policymaker, Ernst has no easy solution for the elusive quandary of whatever composes the women’s issues of the day. But against every media and pollster prediction, the bread and butter approach of Republican women secured the party its victory. After all, nearly every new seat secured in the House was won by a woman, and the commentariat decided that Sen. Susan Collins and Ernst were not supposed to win.

With six more years in the Senate secured, a plum place on the Judiciary Committee, and her own liberation from the ex all mothers warn you about, Ernst seems to have a spring in her step, as far as her own fortunes go.

“Oh, I will be honest,” Ernst says. “I am much, much happier.”