JD Scholten, a Iowa Democratic state representative and professional baseball player, has entered the race to face Republican Senator Joni Ernst in 2026, partly brought him his comments to the voters last week about possible cuts to Medicaid.
Ernst faced a series of agitated constituents in a town hall that expressed concern that Republican cuts to Medicaid in the bill would finance Trump’s legislative agenda. After a person at the audience shouted. “People are going to die!” Ernst replied: “Well, we are all going to die.”
The incident “really hit home with me,” Scholten told ABC News in a brief interview. “We need a better leadership than that.”
On Saturday, Ernst published a “apology” sarcastic for his comments on what appeared to be a cemetery, saying: “I made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood that, yes, we are all to perish this land. So I apologize, and I am very happy not to have to mention the issue of tooth.”
JD Scholten, Democratic candidate for the fourth district of the Iowa Congress, speaks in Iowa’s democratic wing in Clear Lake, Iowa, August 9, 2019.
Caroline Brehman/CQ-Roll called Getty Images
Scholten has run for a higher position before, reaching a few points of disrupting the representative of the extreme right Steve King in 2018. He lost the 2020 race for the old King seat to the representative Randy Feenstra by a broader margin and currently serves in the state house that represents the area of the city of Sioux.
He is currently a pitcher of the explorers of the city of Sioux of the American Baseball Association, an independent league of the major baseball leagues.
If he won the Democratic primaries, Scholten said he also plans to make the race a referendum about the commercial policy of President Donald Trump, noting that Iowa soy farmers have been trapped in the commercial war with China.
Although some of the seats of the Iowa representatives are considered competitive in 2026, the Democrats have not won a career in the Senate in the state since 2008.
-Alison Pecorin de -abc News contributed to this report.
