By USPatriotNews.com Editorial Team
Disclosure: This article may contain affiliate links. If you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a commission at no additional cost to you. All opinions remain our own.
If you won’t show up for the job you already have, why on earth should Iowans give you a promotion? That’s the blunt question President Donald Trump is asking after flagging a bombshell report revealing that Iowa Democrat Josh Turek — the party’s U.S. Senate candidate — missed nearly 60% of his state legislative votes during 2026. Trump took to Truth Social on Monday to blast the revelation, writing simply: “Lazy Senators don’t play well in Iowa.” He’s right. And Iowa voters are paying attention.
A Record That Disqualifies Itself
In This Article
Let’s be clear about what a nearly 60% absentee rate means in practice. It means that when his constituents sent Josh Turek to the Iowa State House to represent them, to fight for them, to cast votes on the laws that govern their lives — he couldn’t be bothered to show up more than half the time. Not 10% missed. Not even 25%, which would itself be alarming. Nearly six out of every ten votes, gone. Skipped. Absent. No vote recorded.
The report, published by Just the News, lays out the damning attendance record in stark detail. And the timing couldn’t be worse for Turek — or better for Iowa Republicans. The Democrat is asking Hawkeye State voters to hand him one of the most consequential jobs in American government, a seat in the United States Senate, while his existing record in Des Moines shows he can’t even be trusted to perform the basic duties of a state legislator.
This isn’t about missing a vote here or there due to illness or a family emergency. Everyone understands life happens. This is a pattern — a systemic, documented failure to fulfill the basic obligations of elected office. Voters in Iowa deserve better. They deserve a senator who will be present, engaged, and fighting for them every single day.
Trump Sees It Clearly — And Iowa Does Too
President Trump has always had a sharp eye for exposing the phoniness of the political class, and his Truth Social post Monday is a perfect example of that instinct at work. While the legacy media might have buried this story or spun it with sympathetic framing, Trump put it front and center where it belongs — in the public square, for every Iowa voter to see.
Iowa is not a state that rewards slackers. It is a hardworking, no-nonsense state built on agriculture, manufacturing, and Midwestern grit. Farmers don’t get to skip 60% of their days in the field. Factory workers don’t get to show up when they feel like it. Small business owners don’t get the luxury of absent leadership. Why should Iowa’s senator?
The political left has a long and well-documented history of holding elected office as a platform for personal advancement rather than public service. They run for one job while quietly auditioning for the next. They collect a taxpayer-funded paycheck while neglecting the constituents who put them there. Josh Turek’s attendance record is a textbook example of exactly that mindset — and Iowa voters are sharp enough to recognize it.
President Trump carried Iowa by significant margins in both 2020 and 2024, and his America First agenda resonates deeply in a state that values hard work, personal responsibility, and elected officials who actually do their jobs. A candidate with a 60% no-show rate isn’t just a political liability — he’s an insult to the people he claims to want to serve.
The Democrat Party’s Iowa Problem Just Got Worse
Democrats were already facing an uphill battle in Iowa’s U.S. Senate race. The state has trended strongly Republican over the past decade, and the political environment in 2026 — with President Trump’s agenda delivering results on the border, on energy, and on the economy — is not friendly territory for the left. Now they’re saddled with a candidate whose own record in the state legislature makes a compelling case against his own candidacy.
This is the kind of vulnerability that doesn’t go away. Once voters learn that their would-be senator skipped nearly 60% of his legislative votes, that number sticks. It will appear in campaign ads. It will come up in debates. It will be shared in diners, at church potlucks, and around kitchen tables across Iowa from Council Bluffs to Dubuque. Numbers like that have a way of defining a candidate — because they should.
Republicans looking to hold and expand their Senate majority in 2026 should take note of what President Trump did here: he identified a powerful, factual, completely legitimate line of attack and amplified it immediately. That’s the kind of sharp political instinct that has kept the MAGA movement on offense while Democrats scramble to explain themselves.
- Josh Turek missed nearly 60% of Iowa state legislative votes in 2026
- He is the Iowa Democrat Party’s U.S. Senate candidate
- President Trump called him out directly on Truth Social
- Iowa has voted Republican in the last two presidential elections by wide margins
- The Senate seat is a key target in the 2026 midterm cycle
Bottom Line
Josh Turek wants Iowa voters to trust him with one of only 100 seats in the United States Senate — a job that requires showing up, debating legislation, casting votes, and fighting for the people of Iowa on a national stage. But his own record proves he can’t be trusted to do that. When given the responsibility of a state legislative seat, he walked away from nearly 60% of the votes his constituents needed him to cast.
President Trump nailed it in two words: “Lazy Senators.” Iowa doesn’t need one. America doesn’t need one. And if the voters of the Hawkeye State are paying attention — and they always are — Josh Turek’s absentee record won’t just be a campaign issue. It will be a campaign-ending one.
Follow USPatriotNews.com’s full 2026 election coverage at uspatriotnews.com/politics.
