THURSDAY: Candidate Turek on The Last Word!

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2026

In search of an emergence: "I'm a scrappy kid from Youngstown," Candidate Acton has said. We Blue Americans could surely gain from the emergence of some scrappy new blood. 

Senator Ossoff has emerged as a master of punishing but reasonable rhetoric. On Tuesday night, Candidate Turek went on The Last Word to offer a version of his closing campaign pitch.   

Josh Turek is the Democratic nominee for the Iowa Senate seat from which Senator Ernst is retiring. It would be a Democratic Party pick-up, but Iowa has seemed to be quite Red of late.

At present, the Iowa race seems to be roughly even. Here's a bit of the leading authority's overview:   

Josh Turek

Joshua Peter Turek (born April 12, 1979) is an American politician and wheelchair basketball player serving as a member of the Iowa House of Representatives from the 20th district. He is the Democratic nominee in the 2026 United States Senate election in Iowa.

Born in Council Bluffs, Iowa, Turek played wheelchair basketball for Southwest Minnesota State University and professionally in Europe and competed with the United States men's national wheelchair basketball team, winning gold medals at the 2016 and 2020 Summer Paralympics.

Turek was elected to the Iowa House of Representatives in 2022 and reelected in 2024. He has been described as a moderate and a prairie populist.

[...]

Born with spina bifida, Turek underwent multiple surgeries as a child to improve mobility and has used a wheelchair since childhood. He has linked his spinal condition to his father's exposure to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.  

We Blues could possibly learn a few things from a good solid "prairie populist." Here's part of what the candidate said when he appeared with O'Donnell:

CANDIDATE TUREK (10/27/26): My political North Star is actually a quote from Franklin Delano Roosevelt where he said, "The test of our progress as a society is not whether we add more to those with  abundance, but whether we have enough for those with least." 

And I can tell you, I grew up with a lot of economic struggle. In my family, come from a working-class family, working-class community.  We went to the Goodwill for clothes, we shared clothes, had the wrong color lunch tickets. I know what it's like to worry about missing a meal. 

Also born with my disability, 21 surgeries by the age of 12. I say that most people in that circumstance, it breaks them. but the ones that come through that have a mental strength that can't be broken.

[...]

I think we have a lot of people that go to D.C. from wealth and privilege We don't have a whole lot of people that came from a place like Council Bluffs, Iowa with lived economic and health care experience—struggle.  

When you've experienced that struggle yourself, you'll have a different level of empathy, a different level of compassion, a different level of understanding, and a different level of fight. That's what we're missing right now in D.C., fighters for the working class, for the everyday Iowans, not just billionaires and large corporations.  

Turek seems to be finishing his campaign with fairly conventional Democratic Party rhetoric, tied to a stress on personal background and personal character.

People, we're just saying! We're hoping that Turek wins this seat, helping Dems take the Senate.