Council Bluffs, Iowa (RI) — Five Democrats are now running for the US Senate seat Republican Joni Ernst holds. Josh Turek, a state representative from Council Bluffs, says he’s a moderate Democrat who’s battle-tested after winning two campaigns in an Iowa legislative district that supported President Trump in 2024.
Turek, who is 46, was born with spina bifida. He won gold medals in wheelchair basketball representing the United States at the Paralympic Games in 2016 and 2020. Turek says people want legislators who work in a bipartisan way for the middle class and working families.
Turek says his political hero is former U.S. Senator Tom Harkin.
Turek played professional wheelchair basketball in Europe and Australia for 17 years and, since 2021, he’s worked for a company that sells wheelchairs for children and adults as well as rehab technology to doctors, hospitals and other health care providers. Turek’s current competitors for the Democratic Party’s US Senate nomination are Jackie Norris of Des Moines, Nathan Sage of Indianola, J.D. Scholten of Sioux City, and Zach Wahls of Coralville.
