Is Zach Wahls the Next Iowa Senator?

 

Greeted this a.m. with news that Sen. Elizabeth Warren would be making campaign appearances on behalf of Zach Wahls in the Iowa Democratic senatorial primary coming up on June 2nd. That Iowa Senate primary is another hot Democratic contest of left insurgency vs. establishmentarian moderation, by which I mean Chuck Schumer's preferred (safe) candidate -- Josh Turek, a 46-year-old Gold Medalist in wheelchair basketball -- is clearly losing to a younger (dangerous) Wahls, who is polling well ahead of Turek. Wahls also wins hypothetical matchups with the Republican candidate he'll face in the fall. It's an open seat because Joni Ernst had had enough.

So I needed to refresh my memory about Zach Wahls: Way back in 2011, as the 19-year-old straight man and former Eagle Scout raised by married lesbians, Wahls stood up during public comment in an Iowa House hearing about a bill to ban gay marriage in the state's constitution and delivered a clear and impassioned defense of his own family. That speech went viral online, quickly garnering a half-million views on YouTube which eventually climbed into the millions. Here is it again, if you have a hankering for persuasion and the language arts:  

 

 

Wahls was a new student at the University of Iowa, studying engineering, when he made that 3-minute speech. He became instantly famous, an unapologetically heterosexual young man who was raised (very well, as it turns out) by two lesbians. No one could speak more powerfully for gay rights. He dropped out of the engineering program to write a book that was published in 2012, My Two Moms: Lessons of Love, Strength, and What Makes a Family. He became a public speaker willing to challenge orthodoxy. A Catholic college felt compelled to cancel not one but two scheduled appearances by Wahls, sponsored by the Gay-Straight Alliance and the College Democrats, after his book came out. That September of 2012 Wahls was given a speaking slot at the Democratic National Convention in which he thanked President Obama for the courage to support same-sex marriage.

Wahls went back to the University of Iowa and got his degree but kept active in Democratic Party politics. He became a Hillary Clinton delegate to the National Convention in 2016, the same year he earned his degree. In 2018 he ran for a safe Democratic state Senate seat, and in 2021 he was voted Senate Minority Leader by his colleagues.

Wahls's rise has been steady and deliberate. But the articulation of difficult topics by a surprisingly mature 19-year-old in 2011 has matured (hardened in a sense) into accomplished politician-speak. He's so prepared and so damn articulate that he can begin to sound rote. He and Graham Platner may end up being sworn into the same Senate, and would be political allies (we assume), but in manner they are very different. Graham Platner's economic populism smacks of lived experience which doesn't do weak nibbling around the edges. Platner's populism is plain-spoken and tough minded. Wahls's seems more rehearsed. He talks in paragraphs. His attachment to the Democratic establishment message about "affordability" doesn't have the smell of sweat about it. Here is Wahls recently on Morning Joe: 

 

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.