Senate Republican DOGE leader Joni Ernst faces first Democratic challenger in 2026 race

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, is facing her first Democratic challenger in the 2026 election as one Marine and Army veteran jumped into the race on Tuesday, vowing to fight “for a Democratic Party that people like me will want to be a part of.”

Nathan Sage, currently the executive director of the Knoxville Chamber of Commerce, announced his candidacy through a campaign video introducing himself as a dad, mechanic, sports radio host and a child of a trailer park in Mason City, Iowa. 

He said he’s fighting for a country “that’s ruled by the people who sustain it, not the billionaire class.” 

“I want to kick corporate Republican Joni Ernst’s a— next November,” Sage said. 

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“The economy is rigged, and those in power don’t give a damn. They’re the ones doing it. Only 2% of Congress come from the working class. We built the damn table. It’s time we had a seat at it,” Sage said in his first campaign video shared on X. 

“I’m fighting for a Democratic Party that people like me will actually want to be a part of. People like my dad, myself, my kids, all the people like us,” Sage said. “The DC elites, the ruling class, they don’t want me. But I think maybe you will.” 

Sage, whose father was a factory worker and mother was a daycare teacher, also took a swing at tech billionaire and President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency adviser Elon Musk using X, which Musk owns. 

“We’ll be up against all the money Elon Musk can throw at us. Please consider supporting this transformative campaign,” Sage wrote, sharing a donation link for his campaign on ActBlue, the main fundraising platform for the Democratic Party. 

Ernst, notably, is leading DOGE efforts in the Senate. 

Sage’s campaign video – which includes sprinkles of profanity – begins by categorizing Ernst as “scandal-ridden” and “corporate-funded.” It also further highlights his working-class background and military service. 

“I never thought someone like me could run for Senate,” Sage said. 

When he was five years old, Sage said, that his father was “arrested for a bounced check — $50.” 

“He was trying to pay for new school clothes for my sister and I,” Sage said. “We grew up poor. But I still believed in this country. So I enlisted again and again. Eight years. We were attacked by mortars and rockets more times than I can count. And by the grace of God, I made it home. Now I’m the executive director of Knoxville Chamber of Commerce, one of the many places that’s being abandoned, hurt by corporations, billionaires and the politicians they own.” 

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“There’s a war at home, and we’re losing. Unions under attack. Farmers f—ed over,” Sage said. “People working nonstop just to survive. Too busy to enjoy life. People like my dad are spending their life slaving away in factories only to die of cancer caused by those same corporations.” 

In an interview with The Hill, Sage said he decided to run out of concern for women’s healthcare coverage after November’s election, noting his wife had a miscarriage earlier last year.  

“That got me to the point where we shouldn’t be as a working class – as people in general – we shouldn’t be living like that,” Sage reportedly said. 

Ernst, who is running for her third Senate term in 2026, retired as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Iowa Army National Guard after 23 years of military service, but Sage claimed that the Republican senator has “kind of left the working class and left a lot of Iowans behind.”

Cook Political Report – the leading nonpartisan handicapper – categorizes Ernst’s seat as “solid Republican” in the 2026 race. She faces several GOP primary challengers but is considered the front-runner. 

Iowa hasn’t elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 2008, when Sen. Tom Harken secured another term. The Hawkeye State last voted for a Democratic presidential candidate in 2012, when former President Barack Obama was re-elected. 

Trump has won Iowa in every consecutive presidential contest since then. Marion County, where Sage is from, voted for Trump by a sweeping 38 points. 

“Marion County is a manufacturing county, and most of those people are trying to make ends meet every day of their life. They tried to figure out ways to put food on the table, and I feel like most of them just aren’t represented,” Sage told The Hill. “They don’t have anybody that they feel like is very confident in casting their vote for. And I feel like, for me, I’m one of them, and I’m one of these people that’s just in the middle and that’s going to stand up for the whole of everybody.”