Iowa lawmaker Steve King faces his toughest path to reelection, according to political strategists.
The conservative representative is in a five-candidate primary that could wind up with his ouster, ABC News reports.
After King lost his GOP committee seats and some supporters after making controversial comments about white supremacy, he faces challengers who have strong backings.
“It’s his biggest threat ever, and largely because he’s gone a bridge too far in rendering himself useless for Iowans,” Doug Gross, an attorney and strategist in Iowa who was the Republican nominee for governor in 2002, told ABC News.
Republican led groups at both the state and national level like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Republican Jewish Coalition and National Right to Life have put their support behind challenger Randy Feenstra, a conservative state senator. Sen. Feenstra has raised more money than King and has painted the congressman as an ineffective leader in political ads.
“Leaders deliver. Steve King couldn’t,” the narrator says in a recent Feenstra television ad.
“Our farmers, our families and our President deserve an effective leader that can deliver conservative results,” Feenstra told ABC News in an email.
With so many candidates vying for the seat, there is a chance the contest will go to a convention if no candidate receives more than 35% of the total vote.
One strategist says King has the best odds of winning if the vote goes to convention. King won his first House primary race on the third ballot in a nominating convention in 2002.
“If it goes to convention, which it could, I think that’s his best shot to win,” said Brent Siegrist, a former speaker of the Iowa state legislature, who lost to King in that 2002 convention by 19 votes. “The delegates that are selected tend to be those hardcore, true believers, if you will, and Steve plays very well with them.”
But King may not have the support he once did from some members of his GOP base. King has sparked controversy with comments he has made on abortion, immigrants and Islam. But it was a statement he made to the New York Times about white supremacy that caused some supporters to back away from him.
"White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?" he told the newspaper.
He later disputed making the remarks. He was removed from GOP leadership and committee posts in January 2019.
Since then, King hasn’t received much support for his reelection efforts, with many GOP members distancing themselves. He has about $30,000 in his campaign coffers.
“It’s not really about the things that he said and the outrageous comments, it’s about his effectiveness and spots on the committees at a time when agriculture is struggling and small businesses are struggling,” said Dave Kochel, a veteran GOP strategist who has donated to Feenstra.
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