Ernst's Trump Trouble Politico

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https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/31/joni-ernst-trump-2020-iowa-senate-1244074https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/31/joni-ernst-trump-2020-iowa-senate-1244074

“Other senators are speaking up, criticizing Trump and defending McCain, but I have yet to hear one word from you,” one man implored her. “Is there no line Trump can cross that would cause you to break ranks with him?”

Ernst was elected to the Senate in 2014 under much different circumstances. The 48-year-old combat veteran ran as an independent-minded Republican who would slash federal spending and combat Democratic overreach. But next year she’ll be on the ballot with Trump, whose tariffs have hurt the state’s agriculture industry and whose tax cut — backed by Ernst — has ballooned, not reined in, the deficit.

But her reelection in the conservative-leaning state, which Trump carried easily in 2016, is not a foregone conclusion. Democrats flipped two GOP-held seats in Iowa last year, and Trump's approval ratings have sunk as his trade wars have stretched on. Barack Obama won the state twice and Ernst’s predecessor, Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin, represented the state for three decades.

"She sold herself as this Harley-wearing, gun-shooting, pig-castrating person who really would stand up and be tough and she hasn’t been tough,” Sand said, referring to Ernst's viral 2014 ad boasting about her history castrating pigs as a metaphor for how she'd cut government waste. “She’s just taking orders from Mitch McConnell.”

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