Posted on by Justin Baragona

Sarah Palin Clone Joni Ernst Trailing Democrat Bruce Braley In Iowa Senate Race

content/uploads/2014/09/joni-ernst-sarah-palin-e1410201809190.jpg">joni ernst sarah palin

 

Republicans got some bad news on Monday as a poll in a key Senate race revealed that one of their ‘rock stars’ is quickly losing steam and is now trailing against her Democratic opponent. In the open Iowa Senate race, Rep. Bruce Braley (D-IA) is now leading Republican State Senator Joni Ernst by five points. Loras College released their poll on Monday. In early August, the polling institute showed Ernst up by six points with her likability numbers climbing. Now, she is scoring a net negative favorability rating with voters while Braley has a net positive.

The GOP is hoping to switch this seat red in their effort to overtake the Senate from Democrats. Current Democratic Senator Tom Harkin is retiring at the end of his term. As Iowa is considered one of the more purple states in the Union, and President Obama’s approval rating has been hovering in the low- to mid-forties for over a year now, Republicans felt like this Senate seat could easily be won due to the party not having to deal with a popular incumbent. Republicans settled on Joni Ernst as the candidate after a couple of lowbrow campaign ads of hers brought her national exposure. She eventually won the GOP primary running away.

However, the honeymoon period has already faded with Ernst. Besides noticing the endorsement from the politically toxic Sarah Palin, voters are also getting more of a sense of just how extreme and out-of-touch Ernst the politician really is. While there is a certain appeal to a tough-talking woman claiming to castrate Washington politicians and shooting Obamacare ads with her pistol early on in a campaign, that type of rhetoric and behavior wears thin the closer you get to an election. Voters start getting concerned that a candidate might just be a loon who won’t take the job seriously. This is especially true in Senate elections, which are statewide rather than being confined to a city or district.

Ernst’s decline with voters can also be attributed to an energized effort by the Braley camp to emphasize her voting history and her at times insane comments. Ernst will have to answer for her statement earlier this year where she said that President Obama needs to be impeached. The comments were highlighted in July when Republicans were doing their best to squelch impeachment talk as they realized it reflected very poorly on the party and put off voters. Also, getting endorsed by Palin and appearing on stage with her will lead to unfavorable comparisons between the two women. This is especially true since Ernst is basically using the Palin playbook by framing herself as a folksy, nonintellectual, conservative woman from the ‘real’ America.

Obviously, with the election eight weeks away, there is still quite a bit of time for Ernst to reverse course and gain on Braley. A five-point lead is not insurmountable, and Braley is still a somewhat unknown commodity to a number of Iowans, even with him being a sitting Congressman. However, the trend line is not looking good for Ernst right now. As we are seeing in other swing state races, voters are showing that they aren’t really interested in embracing far-right candidates with extremist positions. Will Ernst be like Thom Tillis in North Carolina and Cory Gardner in Colorado and try to make a hard left turn in order to appeal to moderates?

44 Replies to “Sarah Palin Clone Joni Ernst Trailing Democrat Bruce Braley In Iowa Senate Race”

  1. I have never in my 56 years ever struck a woman in reaction or with malice of forethought BUT!!! HOWEVER!!! I would hold no compunctions when letting one fly on either $carah Paylin or that crazy woman Joni Ernst! And if she pulled a gun I would grab it out of her hand and pistol whip her! Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve disarmed a coward gun nut.

  2. Why would anyone vote for a nonintellectual is something I cannot understand.

    I hate to generalize but are the majority of white people willing to trust the future of the country to dumb and dumber?

  3. In a normal setting all you would have to say is, Is this what you want as a rep?

    In a normal setting

  5. You gotta like this …if you are a Democrat. And yes, keep Sarah out there endorsing, and endorsing. Wink-wink.

  7. Republicans think Iowans are like the Ziffles, when they’re more like the Douglases, dahlink…

    Steve King is just a House lunatic, that keeps getting reelected by jerrymandering.

  9. About time people in Iowa started to wise up and see that with her, she’s pretty much lipstick on a pig: Not pretty at all.

    Now, if they can just give King’s sorry tea bagging ass the boot down the road…

  10. “rock star?” boy, the gop sure can pick ’em! selecting a palin clone is never a winning strategy. hell, it wasn’t a winning strategy for palin.

    my hubby and I overlooked this senate race. I will talk to him about donating to brayley’s race. the senate has to stay in democratic hands.

  11. Not a majority of white people, just enough to make Republicans a viable party. I think that is going to change though, I know many people who are Republicans and are not of the RWNJ, Christo-fascist type and they are fed up with the party and are rethinking their allegiances. I hope that is a trend for the rest of the country also.

  12. July 30th: Senate Republicans voted to kill the Bring Jobs Home Act. Almost every single Republican voted against legislation. Over the last 10 years, 2.4 million jobs have been shipped overseas while businesses write off the expenses of moving personnel and operations offshore. The Bring Jobs Home Act would have ended this deduction, and helps companies that bring jobs back home by providing a tax credit of up to 20 percent of the costs of moving their operations back to America. On radio talk shows like Tom Sullivan (lap dog for the GOP-Neo-Cons-men) are saying we need to bring back corporations by competing. So he must mean we should pay Americans only 10 cents per hour as in the police state of Red China—that this is going bring jobs back to America. This talk show host is a total joke.

  15. if voters are not interested in right wing extreme politicans, I hope this means the bumbs in the republican caucuses are voted out of office. at least enough to give democrats control of congress.

  16. Palin does the folksy thing better than Ernst…. Otherwise they are clones!!

    What I found hillarious is the fact that when Palin was in WDM, IA endorsing Ernst, barely anybody showed up to see Palin. Ernst blamed the weather for the low turnout. I live probably about 10-15 min away from that venue or so. I went to a sports event the same afternoon. It was raining granted but it was very passable.
    I still dont buy the weather excuse!

    Iowa like most of the country is so over Palin. It is starting to look like people are also seeing through Ernst finally!!!

    Now if we could be rid of Steve King and Chuck Grassley as well as Gov. Braindead Iowa would be better off..

  17. That’s “dahling”. Final consonants are not devoiced or hardened in Hungarian, as they are in German or the Slavic languages.

  18. this one fact scares the GOPTP more than anything else- if democrats turn out at the 2014 midterms at just a 5% to 10% increase from the dem turnout at the 2010 midterms, dems win big. the house and the senate. not only is this possible, I believe dems will set midterm turnout records. I have friends who are republicans and conservatives and they will be voting for democrats this November. even the rightwing hates the rightwing. considering a record low approval rating of just 7%, i think a lot of folks will be voting to send a message to the GOPTP. we must vote on November 4th or all this anger, and energy, and initiative and determination will be wasted. we have one good chance to stop the rightwing circus freak show. VOTE NOVEMBER 4th.

  19. Sarah Palin is not worth taking real estate in your head much less any confrontation with her. She is a minor little piker on her way to disappearing.

  20. Yesterday’s polls really messed with my head. Alison Grimes trailing McConnell by 8. Pryor trailing Cotton by 5. What hell does a Republican have to inflict on people before they get it. They show nothing but contempt for the working class. It’s not just their horrific words but their actions. Their policies & voting records harm the middle class & poor. That’s most of America. Most of them admitted it at the latest Koch funded shindig. They were caught on tape. But it doesn’t seem to matter. Politics is so chaotic since the tea party takeover I don’t know how even Nate Silver can predict anything. Maybe these polls are white noise. If Dems vote, we win.But we don’t. Not enough in midterms. Sad with so much at stake. I’ve been following Sam Wang at PEC. Gives me hope.

  21. Oh yeah! Like Liberal democratic dumb dumb Hank Johnson who in 2010 said Guam was in danger of tipping over?

    Leftists are brilliant in their own mind.

  22. Who is Hank Johnson? And he did say he was kidding unlike you idiots who take the ramblings of these grifters as the word from the lawd

  23. Keep goin Sara, you’re only helping the enemy. Who in the world could stand to listen that nails on a chalkboard Palin? She sure plays to the idiots, cause she is one.

  24. Reply to Joseph P. Uhl at 4:40 pm

    ^^^^^^^^^
    Believes Republican men are hostile to women but fails to see the irony in his own morally vacuous comment directed at women.

    Quite extraordinary actually. It’s a special kind of stupid you just don’t see every day.

  25. At a time you would really try to debate policy now you try to pick apart what other people say. I wonder why

  27. djchefron at 10:05 pm

    I wonder why
    ~~~~~~~~~~
    Just keeping the place classy.

    The trash piled up during my absence.
    It needed to be taken out.

    And besides…I can’t ALWAYS talk policy.
    Being bitchy and unpredictable is part of my mystique.

    ;-)

  28. Joni Ernst is a 2010 tea party caliber nutbag. That she’s not trailing by double digits proves the Kochs are somewhat successful in their millions in brainwashing ads. If you’re not rich Joni will be acting against you. Like the rest of the GOP twats in Congress. How stupid can voters be? Even tea party ignoramuses should care about their livelihoods & families. They don’t since they vote against their very survival. They think they’re get revenge against Obama. He’ll never run again. He’s over it & them. They just hurt themselves & everyone else around them.

  29. Hank Johnson is/was a democratic congressman from Georgia. That was in NO WAY a joke. I saw the video. His office released a statement days after saying he was dead panning the statement as a joke. He was serious and the statement his office made was an obvious lie.

    You claim we conservatives are idiots? Well I have never in my life heard of a conservative congressman that was so stupid that he thought the Island of Guam was a floating rock that could sink if more US military moved there. Also what about your supreme leader Obama.? His vast intelligence had nearly doubled the national debt in his short tenure, he has made a mess of the entire Middle East, numbers of Americans on welfare has soared and he refuses to release any of his college transcripts…why? Are his grades too good, LOL.

  30. I noticed there was no option to respond to Charles, typical coward. And classy ?Charles? yeah…riiight! Perhaps you should re-read my comment and understand THIS…I’m not a violent person BUT and HOWEVER..do you see the meaning Charles? Even the most docile of person can be pushed until the threshold is met and then.. YOU Charles are the trash that needs to be “taken out”

  31. Republicans in Iowa must be the only people
    in the world who still give Sarah Palin any credibility whatsoever.

  32. Charlie..”It’s a special kind of stupid you just don’t see every day”..Unfortunately Charles your kind of stupidity and arrogance we see every day here. I will match IQ’s with you any day and win easily.

  33. To me this article would seem to definitely be written by a democrat. Joni Ernest may have been endorsed by Sarah Palin but that is it. She is in NO WAY a clone. At least I sure can’t see Palin in a soldier uniform. After seeing some of the ads put out about her by Brawley and the democrats-they are definitely scared about this race. A soldiers gets my vote over a lawyer any day. I enjoy that Joni has kept her campaign classy unlike Brawley. And NO-I’m not republican. I’m an independent. Go Joni!

  34. Even the most docile of person can be pushed until the threshold is met and then..
    ~~~~~~~~~

    Then your threshold is astonishingly low to get to the point of basically fantasizing on an internet message board about a confrontation with SP and “holding no compunction” hitting women whose only offenses against you are having political opinions you disagree with.

    And if your otherwise docile self would make an exception to physically strike two women who you only read about and who otherwise have had near zero effect on your everyday life, I would imagine your otherwise docile self would make an exception for other women that you politically disagree with as well…. myself being one of them.

    I need to go to work.
    Now while I’m away,
    shock me and say something intelligent.
    .
    .
    .
    I noticed there was no option to respond to Charles, typical coward.
    ~~~~~~~
    Hint: The option exists… but your “IQ’s” just couldn’t seem to figure it out.

  35. No Charles you don’t get it. There was no reply box on your comment, understand? And yes you are the typical Reich Wing coward Charlie you keep picking apart what I post while ignoring what I actually say which means you have nothing. Your so lame you even had to be anal about my typing of the IQ’s..you see Charlie ya’ got nothing and I too must return to work to pay taxes that go mostly to your precious “red” states who get the most while contributing the least. You’re not worth any more time Charles, please keep your feeble anal insults to yourself from now on.

  36. Yes John violence has always been for me a non-option except when self defense or defense of others is the issue. Charles knows nothing of me yet he has convinced himself of quite a lot. Anyone who knows me knows of my infinite patience and temperament for assisting others. I have endured things that would and have turned men into animals yet I maintain composure. Charles is wrong in the entirety of his comments, you can tell by the way he picks and picks at how I say things because what I say he cannot touch. These are not just every day women we are talking about in Joni and $carah, they are severely mentally disturbed women who want the power to legislate and that’s something we should all fight against. Live long and prosper.

  37. Just not fast enough!! she is like a bad case of reoccurring flu, or hives that won’t go away. you scratch and scratch make it bleed and still they won’t go away. That is Sarah Palin.. a blight on our country.

  38. You sound real tough but Palin will shoot your balls off and Todd will break you in half. One less democrat vote.

  39. Oh my. Remember the show where daddy had to show her how to shoot an old moose that just stood there watching her while she shot?
    Never assume Todd is tough enough to do anything. He couldnt stop his kids from doing drugs and getting preggie

  40. Doubtful Sarah Quitter would do anything without first being paid. Todd? Yeah, there’s a real father figure. Couldn’t convince his daughter to keep her legs closed until she got married. A real family values kinda guy. Lol!

  41. Teapot….LOL!..Oookay Sparky..whatever. News for you teapotty, $carah couldn’t hit the side elevation of a farm structure and Todd is tired of defending that crazed woman.

Comments are closed.