Democrats are fighting to preserve their final point of leverage in Iowa’s Senate on Tuesday, as Republicans stand one win away from a supermajority and near-total control of the chamber.
Renee Hardman (D-IA) and Lucas Loftin (R-IA) are set to compete in a special election for Iowa Senate District 16, a seat left vacant after Democratic Sen. Claire Celsi died in October following undisclosed medical complications. First elected in 2019, Celsi had represented the district for over five years.
A Republican pickup would restore the GOP’s supermajority only months after Democrats briefly broke it in an August special election, giving Democrats 17 seats to Republicans’ 33 seats. Still, the balance shifted again after Celsi’s death reduced the Democratic caucus to 16 seats.
Securing a 34th vote would give the GOP two-thirds control of the chamber, allowing it to override gubernatorial vetoes, call special sessions, and confirm a governor’s appointees without Democratic support.
A Democratic win Tuesday would keep Republicans short of a two-thirds supermajority, building on a streak of off-year wins and overperformances that have energized Democrats in Iowa and nationally. It would also require Republicans to secure at least one Democratic vote to confirm Gov. Kim Reynolds’s nominees to state agencies, boards, and commissions.
The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee has framed Hardman’s race as a “must-win,” citing the need to safeguard what it calls “hard-won progress” after Iowa joined five other states where Democrats have broken Republican legislative supermajorities in the past two years.
Democrats hold a roughly 3,300-voter registration edge in the district, accounting for 37% of voters compared with Republicans’ 30%, though turnout in a holiday-week special election could be unpredictable. Approximately one-third of registered voters are unaffiliated or aligned with a party other than their own. Celsi first captured the 16th District in 2022, defeating a Republican opponent by about 16 points in the wake of redistricting. She expanded that margin dramatically last year, winning reelection by a margin of roughly 40 points against a Libertarian challenger.
The district’s political lean still favors Democrats. While President Donald Trump carried Iowa by 13 points last fall, then-Vice President Kamala Harris won Celsi’s former district by 17 points, according to The Associated Press.
Renee Hardman, the first Black woman elected to the West Des Moines City Council and the Democrats’ nominee in Tuesday’s race, is campaigning on what she describes as a record of lowering property taxes and expanding access to affordable housing during her time on the council. Republican candidate Lucas Loftin, a longtime employee of environmental services firm Wright Service Corp., has centered his campaign on limited government and lower taxes.
Democrats’ position in Iowa’s legislature remains vulnerable beyond the Senate fight. Republicans dominate the state House, controlling 66 of the chamber’s 100 seats, compared with Democrats’ 33, with one vacancy outstanding.
Republicans also hold every federal office in Iowa, including all four U.S. House seats and both U.S. Senate seats. That landscape could shift in 2026, when Democrats are expected to mount a competitive bid for the seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Joni Ernst.
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Democrats notched two notable special election upsets earlier this year. In January, Mike Zimmer captured an eastern Iowa Senate seat in a district that had overwhelmingly backed President Donald Trump in 2024. In August, Catelin Drey flipped an open seat in northwestern Iowa, breaking the GOP’s supermajority and extending Democrats’ run of special election wins.
Tuesday will mark Iowa’s sixth special election of the year, three in the state Senate and three in the House. Polls close at 8 p.m. local time.
