Zach Wahls -- The Young Man Who Stood Up

 

On January 31, 2011, Zach Wahls, at the time a 19-year-old engineering student at the University of Iowa, delivered some impassioned and articulate testimony before the Iowa House Judiciary Committee, which was considering an anti-gay marriage amendment to the state's constitution. Video of Wahls's speech went viral, because in it he confessed he was the child of lesbian parents and that no one could find any harm that had come to him as the son of a gay marriage. Wahls's words and demeanor were in fact a tribute to the raising those two women had given him. The Economist described his speech: "This is what it looks like to win an argument." Remind yourself of it to have an appreciation of this kid's power of persuasion.

Zach Wahls, now a 33-year-old credit union vice president and member of the Iowa Senate, has set his sights on Joni Ernst's US Senate seat, which she is vacating, and Wahls made a point of highlighting his viral fame from 2011 when he announced his candidacy. (You can watch his announcement video here.) He was and remains an advocate for LGBTQ rights, though he himself is straight with a wife and new baby. He jokes that though he doesn't fit any of the LGBTQ labels, maybe there should be a new category for "Queer-Spawn."

Wahls ran for his seat in the Iowa Senate in 2018, the Blue Wave year of Trump's 1st mid-term. Wahls easily won the seat in a safe Democratic district and faced no opposition in his reelection to a second term in 2022. He was voted the youngest Senate Minority Leader by his Democratic caucus for 2020-2021, but then got booted from that role by a caucus that wouldn't go along with some sweeping changes to policy which included firing a couple of people from the caucus operation. Getting crossways with his own caucus may hurt him in a Democratic primary, but that sort of trouble could also play very well with Independents. Iowa went for Trump in 2024 by almost 56%. The Cook Political Report still rates it R-plus Infinity -- "Likely Republican" -- even after Ernst's announcement.

So Wahls's declaration for the Senate seat on June 11th had no likely influence on Joni Ernst's bowing out. Some might want to suppose that Wahls's name recognition and youth might have spooked Ernst just a little. I don't know. I doubt it, but I can always hope. Stupid, blind, ever-deluded hope.

Now that J.D. Scholten has dropped out of the Democratic primary, Wahls would appear to be the frontrunner in a still crowded field of three other long shots and also-rans. The Iowa primary will be in June, and this is a race to watch.