Two national Democratic lawmakers endorsed Josh Turek for U.S. Senate on Saturday and called for term limits for U.S. Supreme Court justices and lawmakers.
Nearly 700 Iowans gathered at Des Moines Water Works Park for the 2026 Polk County Steak Fry to hear from 10 current legislators and hopefuls. They were joined by headliners U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse from Rhode Island and U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin from Maryland.
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Whitehouse, who currently serves as the ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said Turek reminded him of former Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin.
“I would say I was an early believer in Josh’s race. I served in the Senate with Tom Harkin. I know what Iowa can deliver because I saw Tom Harkin in action,” Whitehouse said. “And when I took a look at Josh, I saw a lot of Tom Harkin in him. So please send Josh to the Senate.”
Electing Turek, Whitehouse said, will do several things. First, it will “put a check on the crazy people that Trump is putting into office. Second, it will address issues with the Supreme Court. And third, get the dark money out of U.S. elections.”
Whitehouse said there are three great fights that need to happen in Washington. “We need to get rid of dark money in our politics because it’s rotting our politics. We need to back off the climate denial fraud and corruption operations of the fossil fuel industry because our children deserve a better future than what the fossil fuel industry will provide them. And we need to clean up the mess at the Supreme Court.”
The Supreme Court, Whitehouse said, needs to be investigated. They need a proper ethics program that has proper fact finding – there can’t be an exception for the nine, he said. He also wants to see retroactive term limits.
“Those are the things we can do if you send Josh Turek to the Senate,” Whitehouse said. “That will change America. Josh is the right guy.”
Turek took the stage to a standing ovation and hundreds of waving Turek signs. He stressed how Iowans across the state are struggling to put food on the table, a roof over their head, pay electric bills and access healthcare. He highlighted Iowa’s declining educational system, record-level farm bankruptcies due to tariffs and war and the state’s rising cancer diagnoses and ongoing water quality crisis.
“And really, Iowa, we have hit the bottom,” Turek said. “This is not the state that we know. This is not the state we grew up in.”
Pointing to the voting record of his Republican opponent, U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson, Turek said she stands for cuts to healthcare and food programs, support of tariffs and war and tax breaks to billionaires.
“This is not what Iowans want. Iowans want to have a senator that is going to fight for them,” Turek said. Fight for Iowa. Fight for Iowans. Fight for the middle class. Fight for our workers. Not just look out for the billionaires and the large corporations.”
Turek said he also agreed there’s a need for term limits.
“If we can win this seat, we will not only make a generational change to this state, we will be able to flip the Senate, and we’re going to be able to change this country,” Turek said. “All of us together, we’re going to do it.”
Raskin, who serves as the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, also endorsed Turek. He gained national recognition for serving as the lead impeachment manager during the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump and is a key member of the January 6th Committee.
Raskin, who received a standing ovation as he approached the podium, said this was first trip to Iowa. “Been here for 17 days and in the state longer than Republican gubernatorial candidate Zach Lahn,” he joked, drawing effusive clapping, whistling and cheering. He added that Iowans can tip the House and Senate back in the direction of democracy and freedom.
Raskin said Democrats stand for democracy. “The only party in America that will stand up to your right to vote, even if you’re not going to vote for us. We are the party that stands up for constitutional democracy and freedom for everybody in America.”
He invoked the “last great American Republican President Abraham Lincoln, who spoke of government of the people, by the people and for the people.” This is the proposition, Raskin said, that is being tested in the November election. “Our party, says the government, must be an instrument for the common good and public interest of all.”
People must go to the polls, he said, to take the government back again. “You know, everything is under attack. Our whole Constitution is under attack. The preamble is under attack. It’s not even enforceable in court, and it’s under attack.” He said separation of church and state is also under attack.
Agreeing with Whitehouse’s call for term limits for the Supreme Court, he said freedom of speech is under attack. “It’s gotten so bad that Donald Trump’s masked paramilitary soldiers are shooting down American citizens exercising their First and Second Amendment rights in the streets of America,” Raskin said, and promised Americans will see justice for the cases of those killed by federal agents in states such as Minnesota.
Sand calls for conversations and common sense
Gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand said politics is supposed to be about making state government work for ordinary people — not a small number of people with too much power for too long. He threw in his support for term limit legislation that many other candidates are calling for on both a federal and state level.
Sand said two things are missing in Iowa: common sense and conversations. With his town halls, he is listening, he said, and having discussions about solutions that would bring people together and force state government to work for ordinary people.
“That’s what I want us to get back to in the Capitol building. Common sense, listening to each other, being willing to recognize when even the person that’s mostly wrong actually has a point to make. We are having none of that in Des Moines,” Sand said.
He discussed his varying viewpoints to his opponent Lahn and reminded the crowd that his campaign is focused on bringing people together with real solutions.
“That’s why we had over 100 Republicans announce endorsements, including people who are in elected office right now as Republicans,” Sand said. “Because people across the state of Iowa are fed up with the direction of the state. They want change.”
Sand concluded, “Let’s remake this state and turn it back into an Iowa that is not about being redder or bluer, but one about being better and truer.”
Iowa Sen. Sarah Trone Garriott, running in Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District, also cited her support for term limits.
She said she filed a term limits bill in the Iowa Senate that many of her colleagues in the Legislature didn’t like. “We can see that things are not working. We need new voices and new perspectives coming up through the process. And so, we need to find a way to make sure that we can have those new perspectives and new leadership that we need to lead us in a better direction. I will do that in Washington,” she said.
