Iowa Democrat Catelin Drey flips state senate seat to break GOP supermajority, CNN projects
By Ethan Cohen, Jeff Zeleny, CNN
(CNN) — Iowa Democrats secured a consequential victory in a special election on Tuesday, CNN projects, breaking the Republican supermajority in the state Senate by flipping a seat in a district President Donald Trump carried last year.
Democrat Catelin Drey defeated her Republican opponent, Christopher Prosch, in a special election in the Sioux City area to fill the seat of a GOP lawmaker who died of cancer in June.
Trump won the 1st senate district by 11 percentage points in November, so Drey’s margin of victory, currently about 10 points, represents a significant overperformance for Democrats in a state once seen as a top battleground, but which has trended Republican for the last decade.
“For the fourth special election in a row, Iowa voted for change,” Iowa Democratic Party Chair Rita Hart said in a statement. “Our state is ready for a new direction and Iowa Democrats will keep putting forward candidates who can deliver better representation for Iowans.”
While Trump won Iowa by 13 points in 2024 after winning it by eight in 2020, Democrats have overperformed in all four of the state’s special legislative elections this year.
In January they flipped a senate seat in a district Trump had won by more than 20 points.
With Drey’s victory, Democrats will now hold 17 districts in the Iowa Senate, compared to 33 seats held by Republicans, which is enough to break a two-thirds supermajority the GOP has wielded since 2022.
The special election outcome means Democrats could now block Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds’ nominations to state agencies, boards and commissions in the final year of her term.
Iowa Republican leaders downplayed the Democratic victory, with state GOP chairman Jeff Kaufmann saying: “National Democrats were so desperate for a win that they activated 30,000 volunteers and a flood of national money to win a state Senate special election by a few hundred votes.”
But Republican groups also spent considerable money on the seat in a special election that Democrats are trying to use to gain momentum for the 2026 campaign.
In the past decade, Democrats have lost all but one statewide office and all federal seats, but party leaders point to the special election results this year as a sign change is looming in Iowa.
This story has been updated with additional information.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
