Josh Turek

Josh Turek is an Iowa state representative and two-time Paralympic gold medallist in wheelchair basketball who won the Democratic Senate primary on 2 June 2026 with 63% of the vote, defeating state Senator Zach Wahls. He will face two-term Republican incumbent Ashley Hinson in November. Turek represents the 20th House district from Council Bluffs and is the first member of the Iowa legislature with a permanent disability. Born with spina bifida caused by his father's exposure to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, he underwent 21 surgeries before the age of 12 and went on to represent the United States in four Paralympic Games, bringing home two gold medals in wheelchair basketball. He describes his political identity as a "prairie populist" and common-sense moderate.

Turek's PATH to the nomination tracks a wider shift in the Iowa Senate race. On 3 June 2026, Cook Political Report moved the contest from Likely Republican to Lean Republican, with analyst Jessica Taylor naming the Iran War's effect on fuel and fertiliser prices for Iowa's corn and soybean farmers as the specific driver. Iowa is among the country's heaviest fertiliser buyers; a Gulf price shock lands on farm households through both the natural-gas cost of fertiliser production and the diesel cost of planting season, compressing margins on two channels simultaneously. The race is now rated competitive, though Hinson retains structural advantages as a well-funded incumbent in a state Trump carried in 2024.

Turek entered the Iowa House in January 2023 and built a record as a centrist, positioning himself to appeal to the independent and soft-Republican rural voters whose farm-income anxiety Cook cited in its rating change. His Paralympic profile gives him a national fundraising base unusual for a first-time Senate candidate, and his personal story creates contrast with Hinson's more conventional political biography.