IA-04: It’s very tough to see Rep. Steve King, the kingpin of Hawkeye State social conservatives, losing renomination in his reliably red western Iowa seat. Still, state Sen. Rick Bertrand has announced that he would challenge King in the June GOP primary.
King is probably best known nationally for his many racist comments: His career can perhaps be best epitomized with his declaration that, for every child of an undocumented immigrant "who's a valedictorian, there's another 100 out there who weigh 130 pounds and they've got calves the size of cantaloupes because they're hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert." But local business interests have been fine with King since he won his seat in 2002— that is, until he threatened their pocketbooks.
While King is a big proponent of ethanol, a fuel that's made up of a ton of Iowa corn, Ted Cruz is not. Cruz has been reluctant to promote pro-ethanol laws like the Renewable Fuel Standard, and that’s enraged local Republicans like Gov. Terry Branstad and his son Eric Branstad, an ethanol lobbyist. The ethanol industry has been looking to get even with King ever since he endorsed Cruz in the presidential contest, and they’ve reportedly been shopping around for a primary candidate for a while. Iowa’s filing deadline is Friday, so Bertrand is their man.
There’s no doubt that Bertrand has his work cut out for him. Cruz carried the 4th District in the February presidential caucus, so tying King to Cruz probably won’t work too well for Bertrand. It’s also unclear exactly what argument Bertrand plans to make against King. In an interview with the Sioux City Journal, Bertrand criticized King for being “polarizing” and faulted him for not securing important committee posts. But as we’ve seen in primary after primary over the past few years, Republican voters almost universally would rather have a partisan knife-fighter representing them than a quiet legislator. Bertrand also voted in favor of a gas tax, something that King and his allies will almost certainly rip him to shreds over.
Bertrand does have one potential advantage against King though. The congressman has never been a good fundraiser, and he only had a weak $119,000 on hand at the end of 2015. If local ethanol businessman really want to oust King, they should be able to help Bertrand outspend him. Still, all the money in the world won’t help Bertrand if he can’t give primary voters a compelling reason to dump King and so far, Bertrand doesn’t seem to be speaking the language of conservative Republicans at all.