January 1, Obama’s Desperate Iowa Play Has Democrats Scrambling

Wyatt’s Take

• Former President Obama just rolled out a last-ditch endorsement for a little-known Iowa Democrat trying to flip a Senate seat — complete with a basketball stunt video that screams desperation.
• The Republican nominee is Trump-backed Congresswoman Ashley Hinson, a proven conservative fighter who locked down the nomination early with the President’s full support.
• Obama’s team is banking on nostalgia from 2008 — but Iowa has changed, and working families remember who actually delivered results.

Former President Barack Obama has thrown his weight behind Democratic Iowa state Rep. Josh Turek in what’s shaping up to be a critical U.S. Senate race. The endorsement came in the form of a carefully staged video showing the two men shooting hoops on a basketball court.

“Now the ball’s in your court, Iowa. Let’s make sure that we send Josh Turek to the United States Senate,” Obama said near the end of the video that featured a modified version of the classic game horse.

“Let’s go. We playin’ horse or what?” Obama asks.

“We’re playin’ Iowa,” Turek replies.

“I know a little somethin’ about winning Iowa,” Obama quips.

Obama did carry the state in both the 2008 and 2012 presidential contests — but that was before working-class Iowans watched their jobs shipped overseas and their communities hollowed out by failed globalist policies. Times have changed, and so has the Hawkeye State.

Turek is a four-time wheelchair basketball Paralympian and was a gold medalist twice. But athletic accomplishments don’t translate into conservative policy victories or America First legislation.

He will face U.S. House Republican Ashley Hinson in the general election — a race Democrats are now openly panicking about. Hinson represents Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District and has built a solid record standing up for farmers, families, and fiscal sanity.

U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst announced last year that she would not run for re-election in 2026, opening up the seat. That same day, Hinson announced her U.S. Senate bid.

Then just days later, President Donald Trump endorsed Hinson for Senate — giving her campaign instant credibility and momentum with the MAGA base that now dominates Iowa Republican politics.

Obama’s Iowa nostalgia tour is a clear signal that national Democrats are worried. They’re dusting off the 2008 playbook because they have nothing fresh to offer hardworking Midwesterners who’ve been burned by broken promises on trade, energy, and border security.

The contrast couldn’t be starker: a Trump-backed conservative with a proven legislative track record versus a state-level Democrat propped up by coastal elites and a former president whose policies are increasingly out of step with heartland values.

Wyatt Matters

Iowa families don’t need celebrity endorsements or slick basketball videos — they need a senator who’ll fight for American energy independence, secure borders, and an economy that works for people who punch a clock. That’s exactly what Ashley Hinson represents, and exactly what the Obama-Biden wing of the Democratic Party has spent decades undermining.