Democrat Josh Turek has won the US Senate race in Iowa, handing his party a significant victory in a Republican-led state where they have seen their power ebb in the age of Donald Trump.

Turek’s victory over his Ashley Hinson, a Republican congresswoman, marked the first time since 2008 that a Democrat had won election to the Senate in Iowa, and represents a milestone in Democrats’ quest to regain control of the Senate.

It’s also a sign that the party may be able to rebuild its standing with rural voters who once supported them, as Trump’s policies pushed up prices across the country and upended relations with major trading partners.

Iowa has been rocked by the president’s tariff regime, which has harmed the markets for soya beans, one of its major crops. The Iran war has sent prices for fuel and fertilizer spiking, and the state is also grappling with how to lower its unusually high rates of cancer, which Democrats seized on to blame the Republicans for ignoring their voters’ health needs.

Turek, a two-time Paralympic gold medalist in wheelchair basketball who represents a right-leaning district in Iowa’s legislature, sought to harness voter frustration with these issues, while avoiding the divisive culture war traps that had snared other Democrats. He objected to girls playing in boy’s sports and “taxpayers paying for sex changes” as he stated in an ad that aired late in the campaign and was condemned by LGBTQ+ groups.

Turek had pitched himself as a successor to Tom Harkin, the state’s longtime Democratic senator who retired in 2015. His departure, and replacement by Republican Joni Ernst, marked a shift in the fortunes of Democrats in Iowa, which had voted for Barack Obama in back-to-back elections, before flipping to Trump all three times he was on the ballot.

Turek is now set to replace Ernst, who declined to seek re-election this year, and his victory brings Democrats closer to a majority in the chamber, which they can use to block Trump’s legislation and hold up his nominees, including to the supreme court.

Hinson, a former television broadcaster who defeated a Democrat in 2020 to represent a Cedar Rapids-based district in the House of Representatives, she had condemned Turek as “too liberal for Iowa”, and promised to continue the progress made over Trump two years back in office.

But she appears to have been dragged down by Trump’s dismal approval ratings and voter frustration with prices that continued to rise after he took office, despite the president’s pledge of lower costs.