Meticulous Musings: A Fascinating Iowa Senate Race

Two candidates with fascinating life stories are running for the Democratic nomination in the senate election in Iowa.

Zach Wahls, who was raised by a lesbian couple, eloquently and tirelessly advocated for gay rights, before he was elected to serve in the Iowa State Senate.

Josh Turek, who has Spina Bifida, trained hard to become a wheelchair basketball paralympian who won two gold medals, before he was elected to serve in the Iowa House of Representatives.

Iowa will hold its primary on June 2.

The US Senate election in Iowa is for an open seat, because Republican Senator Joni Ernst chose not to run for reelection.

The 2026 Iowa Senate Race has received little national attention, despite the captivating life stories of the two rising stars running in the Democratic primary.

So let’s learn about these candidates, and their fascinating biographies, as we explore the most interesting Senate Race you’ve likely never heard of.

Fighting for Equality

Zach Wahls was raised by his two mothers, Terry Wahls and Jackie Reger.

Both Zach Wahls and his sister were conceived via artificial insemination, from the same anonymous sperm donor, which means they are full biological siblings.

Zach Wahls advocated for gay rights as the US debated whether same-sex couples should be allowed to legally marry.

In 2009, the Iowa Supreme Court overturned a state law that banned gay marriage.

Republicans in the Iowa House of Representatives attempted to overturn the State Supreme Court decision by amending the Iowa State Constitution to ban gay marriage.

The Judiciary Committee of the Iowa House held a hearing on January 31, 2011, as the legislature considered whether to approve the proposed state constitutional amendment.

Zach Wahls, who was a 19-year-old college student at the time, eloquently advocated in favor of marriage equality and against the proposed amendment.

His arguments were so well reasoned that The Economist magazine introduced video of Wahls’s testimony by stating, “This is what it looks like to win an argument.”

Wahls told the committee that his family isn’t that different from any other Iowa family.

“When I’m home, we go to church together. We eat dinner, we go on vacations,” he said. “But, we have our hard times too; we get in fights. Actually, my mom, Terry, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2000. It is a devastating disease that put her in a wheelchair. So, we’ve had our struggles."

“But we’re Iowans,” Wahls continued. “We don’t expect anyone to solve our problems for us. We’ll fight our own battles. We just hope for equal and fair treatment from our government.”

Wahls said the topic of same-sex marriage came up frequently during class discussions at his university.

“The question always comes down to, ‘Can gays even raise kids?’ And the conversation gets quiet for a moment, because most people don’t really have an answer,” he said. “And then I raise my hand and say, ‘Well actually, I was raised by a gay couple, and I’m doing pretty well.’ ”

Wahls reiterated that his family was not that different than any other.

“My family really isn’t so different from yours,” he said. “After all, your family doesn’t derive its sense of worth from being told by the state, ‘You’re married, congratulations!’ No. The sense of family comes from the commitment we make to each other to work through the hard times so we can enjoy the good ones. It comes from the love that binds us. That’s what makes a family.”

Wahls argued against amending the Iowa constitution to discriminate against families like his.

“So what you’re voting for here is not to change us,” he said. “It’s not to change our families, it’s to change how the law views us, how the law treats us.”

“You are voting for the first time in the history of our state to codify discrimination into our constitution, a constitution that but for the proposed amendment is the least amended constitution in the United States of America,” Wahls added.

“You are telling Iowans, ‘Some among you are second-class citizens who do not have the right to marry the person you love,’" Wahls continued.

“So will this vote affect my family? Would it affect yours? In the next two hours, I’m sure we’re going to hear plenty of testimony about how damaging having gay parents is on kids. But in my 19 years, not once have I ever been confronted by an individual who realized independently that I was raised by a gay couple.”

Zach Wahls’s testimony before the committee lasted only three minutes, but it is worth watching in full.

A YouTube video of Wahls’s testimony went viral.

Nevertheless, despite Wahls’s moving argument, the Iowa House voted to advance the proposed state constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. But the amendment was blocked in the Iowa Senate.

Wahls went on to write a book about his upbringing titled, “My Two Moms: Lessons of Love, Strength, and What Makes a Family.”

He delivered a petition to the Boy Scouts of America advocating against the organization’s ban on gay and lesbian scout leaders.

At the 2012 Democratic National Convention, Wahls praised President Barack Obama for being willing to “put his political future on the line” to support same-sex marriage.

Wahls was elected to the Iowa State Senate in 2018, and he was reelected to the Iowa Senate in 2022.

In the Iowa Legislature, Wahls served as Minority Leader for Senate Democrats from 2020 to 2023.

In February 2011, Chloe Angyal, a journalist from Sydney, Australia, wrote an article for the blog, “Feministing” about Zach Wahls’s testimony before the Iowa Legislature.

The article was titled, “Marry Me, Zach Wahls.”

In the article, Angyal wrote, “Full transcript below the jump. Oh, and Zach? Several Feministing contributors are developing large crushes on you. I won’t name any names, but they rhyme with ‘Shmaya’ and ‘Shloe.’ What can we say? We dig guys who dig equality.”

The article led to Zach and Chloe meeting and subsequently dating. They got married in 2021.

Zach Wahls is now running for the US Senate in Iowa.

Overcoming Adversity

Josh Turek, a wheelchair basketball paralympian, is also running for the US Senate in Iowa.

Turk was born with spina bifida, and he received 21 surgeries by the age of 12.

Turek aspired to become an Olympic athlete.

Turek trained hard to reach his goal. He practiced by shooting a thousand basketball shots every day.

Turek played on the USA Men’s Paralympic Wheelchair Basketball team that won gold medals in 2016 and 2020.

Josh Turek was elected to the Iowa House of Representatives in 2022. He was reelected in 2024.

In 2023, Turek told the Des Moines Register that he looked forward to advocating for Iowans with disabilities in the legislature.

"We have essentially been 15% (of the state) with zero voice and zero representation," he said. "Essentially, (we're an) invisible minority group in the state of Iowa."

Turek said he hopes kids on field trips who use mobility aids will appreciate seeing a legislator like them.

"There's going to be a wheelchair user. He's going to go in there and see, 'Wow, there's a legislator up here representing me and my group,'" Turek said.

"And he's going to know that, not only can he have success in adaptive sports, but that there is no glass ceiling for him in any area. That he can go on to do great things, including being a representative for the state or even (at a) national level."

The news publication “Iowa Starting Line” interviewed Josh Turek about his US Senate campaign.

A Competitive General Election

By now, the former swing state of Iowa has earned a reputation for being a deeply Republican state.

In the 2024 Presidential Election, Donald Trump won Iowa by 13.2%.

But a poll of the Iowa Senate race indicates Democrats have a chance to win the seat in November.

The polling firm Echelon conducted a poll from April 3-9 that compared both Democratic candidates in head-to-head general election matchups against Ashley Hinson, a Republican candidate in the US Senate election, who is currently a member of the US House.

Zach Wahls leads Hinson by 2%.

Josh Turek leads Hinson by 1%.

Regardless of who wins the Democratic primary, Iowa is poised to have a competitive US Senate race in November.

The Cook Political Report considers the Iowa Senate race to be Likely Republican.

Unfortunately, Iowa can’t elect both of the Democratic candidates to the US Senate in 2026.

But the next US Senate race in Iowa is just around the corner.

Hopefully, either Wahls or Turek wins the 2026 US Senate election in Iowa.

If they do, the candidate who lost the Democratic primary can run against Iowa Republican Senator Chuck Grassley in 2028.

You can support both Zach Wahls and Josh Turek by donating to the Democratic Victory Fund, which raises money for candidates in important and competitive elections, nationwide.