Iowa’s Joni Ernst May Just Hang It Up and Go Home

If there’s anyone in the U.S. Senate who typifies the adaptability of Republicans to the Donald Trump era up until recently, it’s probably Iowa senator Joni Ernst. She was first elected as sort of a classic Tea Party Republican in the pre-Trump cycle of 2014. She offset an undistinguished career as a right-wing state legislator by deploying a gold-plated military résumé (she was a high-ranking officer in the Iowa National Guard) and some clever sloganeering trading off her upbringing on a hog farm.

More important, Ernst timed her ascent to the big time perfectly, defeating damaged-goods Democrat Bruce Braley (fatally taped disrespecting the revered senior senator from Iowa, Chuck Grassley, at an out-of-state fundraiser held by trial lawyers) at precisely the moment her state began its transformation in political coloration from purple to red.

As a freshmen senator, Ernst had a close-up view of Trump’s first major step toward the White House in the Iowa caucuses of 2016. She appeared to favor her Senate colleague Marco Rubio, but was smart enough to stay officially neutral (the caucuses were won by Ted Cruz, a rare Trump loss that year). When Trump won the 2016 nomination, according to a later account she gave, he offered to make Ernst his running mate, but she turned him down because of marital difficulties she was having (she and her husband later divorced). Ernst’s adaptability to the shifting winds in her party indeed made her a logical choice for Trump, and it’s fascinating to consider how things would have gone if it had been her rather than Mike Pence being told to overturn Joe Biden’s election in 2020 (she did vote in the Senate to certify Biden’s win after the failed insurrection).

Since her missed opportunity in 2016, Ernst has steadily risen in the GOP Senate hierarchy, earning a solid if not smashing reelection win in 2020 (benefiting from Trump’s coattails) and moving up the ladder on the Agriculture and Armed Services Committees.

But suddenly, after Trump’s reelection in 2024, things started going sour for Joni Ernst. Right after Election Day, she got smoked by Tom Cotton in a contest for chair of the Senate Republican Conference, the No. 3 position in the party leadership. The very next day, Trump named Fox News personality Pete Hegseth his choice to become secretary of State. This was a big problem for Ernst as a senior Armed Services Committee member who had made the poor treatment of women in the military — including those suffering sexual assault — a signature issue. Aside from being totally unqualified for the job, Hegseth had been accused of sexual assault (his defense that the incident in question involved drunken and adulterous, but still consensual, sex wasn’t totally reassuring) and long made disparaging remarks about women in the kind of military roles that Ernst herself had performed.

It sure looked like Ernst was well positioned to take Hegseth down during his confirmation hearings. But then the MAGA troll army went to work. Very quickly, that tough hog-castrating veteran caved, as the New York Times reported:

Mr. Trump’s hard-line backers paid for ads in Ms. Ernst’s home state, questioned her Republican bona fides on social media and even threatened to launch primary challenges against her in 2026 to push her toward supporting Mr. Hegseth as the nominee.

Some prominent Trump activists, including Charlie Kirk and Stephen K. Bannon, the right-wing strategist, pushed to recruit Kari Lake, the former Republican candidate for governor of Arizona who grew up in Iowa, as a potential challenger to Ms. Ernst.

Next thing you knew, Ernst was making nice with Hegseth, and the grilling he expected from her during confirmation hearings never transpired. It was a classic and universally understood example of successful political bullying, leaving Ernst without a primary challenge, but also without much dignity. Next thing you knew, she was closely identifying herself with Elon Musk’s DOGE initiative, not a big political winner much of anywhere.

Then it all got worse as Ernst bungled and then re-bungled protests over the early stages of Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, responding to complaints back home about the deadly effects of Medicaid cuts by telling worried constituents, “Well, we all are going to die.” When that went over as you might expect, Ernst made a much bigger deal out of her gaffe by releasing a bizarre and mocking video from a graveyard:

The reaction to that move was so bad that people began wondering if her previously very safe seat might be in danger when she comes up for reelection next year. Credible Democrats began giving the contest a long look.

But one possible explanation for her cavalier treatment of protests has now come to the fore: Maybe she has already decided to hang it all up and doesn’t really care what Iowans think of her anymore. Politico reported on the speculation:

Three people granted anonymity to disclose private discussions said there is rising concern among fellow Senate Republicans that Ernst will retire rather than run for reelection, giving Republicans another seat to defend next fall.

Many will be watching closely for clues next week when Ernst files new campaign fundraising totals. She raised just over $1 million in the first quarter of 2025, a solid but not overwhelming number for an in-cycle senator.

Politico’s Rachel Bade expanded on her reporting by telling Morning Joe that Republicans in the Senate “don’t see the fight in her anymore.” So perhaps the oh-so-confident Joni Ernst of 2014 has now tired of “making them squeal” in Washington.