Eleven weeks after entering the 2026 race for U.S. Senate, J.D. Scholten has ended his bid for the Democratic nomination. Scholten, who represents Sioux City in the Iowa House, endorsed fellow western Iowa lawmaker Josh Turek in his announcement on Monday.
“I’m ending my campaign because I believe it’s the right thing to do,” Scholten said in a written statement posted on social media. “I want Joni Ernst to be held accountable for her failed leadership. I want Democrats to win. I know we can — and if we elect Josh Turek, I believe we definitely will.”
Turek, who is in his second term in the Iowa House representing Council Bluffs, launched his campaign for the Senate last week.
“From the very beginning, I thought a prairie populist athlete from western Iowa would be the best candidate to win in the general election,” Scholten said in his statement. “I still do, but instead of me, I have complete confidence that Josh Turek can take this on. That’s why I am suspending my campaign and endorsing him. As his friend, I’m proud to support him.”
In addition to sharing many political positions, Scholten and Turek are both athletes. Scholten is a professional baseball player, and is currently a pitcher for the Sioux City Explorers. He had previously pitched for a variety of teams, including the Saskatoon Legend of the Canadian Baseball League, and in 2023, Scholten divided his time between Iowa and the Netherlands, while he played for the Twins Oosterhout of the Honkbal Hoofdklasse (a Dutch major league team).
Turek, who was born with spina bifida and has used a wheelchair since he was young, played wheelchair basketball in high school and college, before going on to join the U.S. men’s national wheelchair basketball team, representing the U.S. in the Paralympic Games four times. In 2012, the team earned the bronze medal and in 2016 and 2020, Turek helped lead the team to gold medal wins.
In his statement on Monday, Scholten also pointed to another thing he and Turek have in common. They are “the only two Democrats west of Des Moines in the state legislature.” Scholten said that serving together in the House, he and Turek bonded over their love of sports and “growing up in parts of the state often neglected by Democrats.”
Speaking last week at the Wing Ding, an annual fundraiser for the Iowa Democratic Party, Scholten talked about the importance of having Democratic candidates who could effectively campaign in parts of the state where the party has had little success over the last decade.
“In our primary, I really want to challenge the candidates to get out there, because there’s going to be a lot of focus in places like Des Moines and Cedar Rapids and Iowa City,” Scholten told the people gathered in the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake on Thursday. “In order to win in 2026, we have to go to all 99 counties. We have to talk not only to Democrats, but to non-Democrats and welcome people into our coalition, because that’s how you overperform.”
Turek also spoke at the Wing Ding, along with the other three Democrats in the Senate primary: Nathan Sage, a first-time candidate and the former executive director of the Knoxville Chamber of Commerce; Zach Wahls, who is in his second term representing Coralville, North Liberty and other parts of Johnson County in the Iowa Senate; and Jackie Norris, chair of the Des Moines School Board.
In their campaign launch videos, both Scholten and Turek referenced Sen. Ernst’s callous response to a constituent’s concerns about people dying needlessly if they lose access to Medicaid because of the cuts Ernst voted for. “Well, we all are going to die,” Ernst said dismissively during a townhall-style meeting in Parkersburg on May 30. After her response generated national headlines, Ernst posted a video mocking people offended by it, suggesting they “embrace my lord and savior, Jesus Christ.”
“When I was kid, there was a senator from Iowa that made sure that the doors were open for kids like me,” Turek said in his video, as footage of Tom Harkin appears. The image changes to Ernst as he continues, “Now the senator from Iowa is just closing doors, taking away healthcare, making it harder for parents to feed their kids, all just to give tax breaks to billionaires.”
“And her explanation?” Turek says before the video cuts to Ernst’s “we all are going to die” remark.
Turek has said his campaign will focus on “kitchen table issues” Iowans are struggling with, and told the Gazette that as a senator he would model his approach after Harkin’s.
“We need to get back to having a senator from Iowa that is looking out for social and economic justice, for the middle class, for working people, for the most vulnerable, and that’s what I want to do, and that’s why I’m doing this,” he said.
“There are so many issues facing Iowans today but we can’t sit by while healthcare is ripped from millions of Americans,” Scholten said in his social media post on Monday. “And there is no better Democrat in Iowa to hold Joni to account for her cruelty than State Rep. Josh Turek.”
Ernst, who pledged during her first campaign for Senate in 2014 to only serve two terms, has not yet officially announced if she is running for a third term, but sounded like a candidate when she spoke to the influential Westside Conservative Breakfast Club in Urbandale last week.
Iowa’s junior senator shrugged off the Democrats running against her — “Every day we get a new Democratic member of the House or Senate that decides to run for this Senate seat.” — before saying “at the end of the day, Iowa is going to be red.”
Ernst also boasted about her good relationship with President Trump, and talked about next June’s Republican Primary, which already has two declared candidates, Jim Carlin and Joshua Smith.
“In the Republican primary, you must turn out, OK?” the senator said. “And then after all of those choices have been made through the Republican primary, we all come together as Iowa and support our Republican candidates and we turn out in November and we put the Democrats in their place.”
Members of the audience cheered in response to Ernst’s remarks.