Comment: Sen. Ernst’s sarcasm won’t help her keep her seat

By Patricia Lopez / Bloomberg Opinion

Iowa Senator Joni Ernst lobbed a verbal grenade into her town hall on Saturday with one heedless, heartless comment.

Confronted by an audience member who shouted that without Medicaid, “people will die,” the Republican replied, “Well, we all are going to die. For heaven’s sake, folks.”

That would once have been a career-ending gaffe for a senator seeking re-election, as Ernst will in 2026. But we’re in the MAGA era now. So instead of backpedaling, she followed up with a video of her strolling through what appears to be a graveyard, face full of faux concern, saying she had made “an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood that yes, we are all going to perish from this Earth … So I apologize.” Then came the sarcastic kicker: “And I’m really, really glad I didn’t have to bring up the subject of the Tooth Fairy as well.”

The harsh comment can’t change the state’s harsh reality: Its economy has been slow to recover from the covid pandemic, in part due to an aging workforce and in part due to its shrinking agricultural sector. The state’s economy contracted last year, making it one of only two U.S. states to see declines in GDP in 2024.

Today, nearly 1 in 5 Iowans depend on Medicaid for health coverage. The program pays for 38 percent of all births in the state; 40 percent of all its enrollees are children. Medicaid foots the bill for half of Iowa’s nursing home residents.

A primary talking point for Ernst and other Republicans has been work requirements that supposedly will produce big savings. What they leave out is that the majority of Medicaid recipients already work. In Iowa, 77 percent of adult recipients are already employed, most of them full-time.

So when that audience member shouted out her pain and fear, she and Ernst’s other constituents deserved better than flippancy. They deserved the truth: According to the Congressional Budget Office, the cuts to Medicaid would mean that an estimated 7.6 million Americans lose their health coverage.

But Ernst has no good way to explain why cutting health care for the working poor is a worthy trade for tax cuts that primarily benefit the wealthy. So instead she chose blunt, careless cruelty.

We’ve all become a bit inured to the taunts President Trump utters when he’s displeased or backed into a corner. It’s disconcerting to see conservatives like Ernst adopt such tactics. And truth be told, she’s not very good at it. Trump, for all his faults, appears able to get away with an abrasive style that works for him and his base. When others try it, they often pratfall.

Ernst’s early reputation was as a mainstream conservative, endorsed in her first Senate race by Mitt Romney. She cut through the noise with an infamous ad in which she equated castrating hogs with cutting the pork in Washington. Iowans found her refreshing and relatable, sending her to the Senate in 2014 and again in 2020.

But Ernst’s star in the Republican Senate has slipped as MAGA’s has risen. She lost her leadership spot as Republican Conference Chair last year to Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, a Trump loyalist. She was snubbed for a speaking spot at the 2024 Republican National Convention, possibly because she did not endorse Trump until rival Nikki Haley had withdrawn from the contest. A veteran, Ernst waffled heavily on the confirmation of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over his minimal qualifications, among other concerns. She ultimately folded and voted to confirm, but her initial skepticism led to a ferocious backlash from Trump’s army of online supporters.

Ernst now faces three primary challengers on her right as she ramps up to the midterms. A second Democratic opponent, state Sen. J.D. Scholten, entered the race after Ernst’s comments went viral. Scholten, best known for nearly unseating Iowa Rep. Steve King in 2018, said Ernst’s race “was not on my radar at the beginning of the year. But I thought, ‘I’ve got to take this fight.’” And Scholten may not be the last, depending on Ernst’s perceived vulnerability.

Ernst is trying on a MAGA suit that doesn’t fit. It may cost her next November.

Patricia Lopez is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering politics and policy. She is a former member of the editorial board at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, where she also worked as a senior political editor and reporter.