Victory Insights released results of a poll on Monday that shows less than half of Iowa Republicans support Sen. Joni Ernst for United States Senate in 2026. While Ernst’s 48 percent was significantly better than the 26 percent earned by “someone else,” she fell short of the 50 percent threshold.
Sixty-three percent of GOP primary voters said they’re in favor of putting an end to U.S. funding to Ukraine for the war and 73 percent said they would like the Senate to confirm Pete Hegseth as Defense Secretary.
Should Ernst vote against some of Trump’s appointees, 53 percent of those polled said Ernst should be replaced with a senator more supportive of President-Elect Trump. Just 27 percent said they would stick with Ernst.
When asked about Ernst’s ideology, 27.9 percent of the GOP primary voters said she is too liberal. While 41.9 percent said her ideology is just right, only 6.2 percent said Ernst is too conservative. Twenty-four percent said they’re unsure on the two-term senator’s ideology.
Only 18.7 percent of Republican primary voters said the U.S. should continue helping fund Ukraine’s war effort. Just 9.8 percent of Republican primary voters said Hegseth should not be confirmed as Secretary of Defense.
Voters were asked to rate the favorability of Ernst along with Hegseth, Trump and Gov. Kim Reynolds. As for Trump, 65.6 percent gave Trump an extremely positive rating. An additional 16.9 percent said they viewed Trump mostly positive. That left 7.1 percent choosing the middle option as 2.2 percent ranked Trump a 4 and 6 percent said they viewed Trump extremely negatively.
Ernst, meanwhile, received a 13.1 percent extremely negative rating. Just 12.5 percent said they hold an extremely positive view of Ernst.
This doesn’t mean jack. Iowans are stupid. We sent Grassley and Harkin to the senate for years so they could cancel each other’s votes out. Look at how many times Iowans have sent Chuck Grassley back. Joni will say some zingers about Democrats and all will be forgiven.