Democrat Catelin Drey didn’t just win Iowa’s Senate District 1 last week. She flipped an open seat that President Trump carried by 11 points in 2024, breaking a Republican supermajority in the State Senate. This wasn’t supposed to be possible in a district written off as solid Republican territory.
Democrats have for years pursued a “pragmatic” strategy of funneling money into urban strongholds and swing suburbs while abandoning deep-red, rural and working-class districts as unwinnable. The logic is straightforward: Resources are limited, races are numerous and hard choices must be made.
But that efficiency has often meant burying the body while the heart is still beating. Across rural America, Republicans have built veto-proof majorities in many state legislatures, taken control of election boards and aggressively redrawn districts. Retreating from “safe red” seats has left Democratic voters without a fighting chance at representation in communities that once supported them.
While special election victories don’t always yield reliable data points, Drey’s win shows that voters in conservative districts are still persuadable — and that Democrats may still have a fighting chance in places they have long considered unwinnable.
Drey succeeded, in part, by embracing a form of populism her party often avoids. Wary of Trump-style politics, Democrats often default to technocratic, policy-heavy campaigns, avoiding messaging that feels emotional or combative. That caution is understandable but, taken too far, it has become a liability in deep-red districts where voters respond to candidates who speak to their daily struggles.
Drey ran as a working mom and local activist. Founder of Moms for Iowa, she built a platform rooted in her experience, speaking directly about housing, childcare and reproductive rights. That authenticity mattered in a state where Democrats have been steadily losing ground to home-grown, working-class Republican candidates.
While her opponent, Republican Christopher Prosch, embodied the state GOP’s culture-war strategy, likening abortion to the Holocaust and pushing conspiracy theories about vaccines and the 2020 election, Drey ran a campaign focused on kitchen-table issues and a clear vision that everyday voters could relate to and rally behind.
Instead of writing off this district as a lost cause, the Democratic National Committee made a calculated last-minute investment, deploying more than 30,000 volunteers for get-out-the-vote efforts.
But this level of support isn’t consistent, as the party tends to concentrate funding on safe seats and top-tier battlegrounds while neglecting heavy Republican districts. Yes, the party’s resources are limited and it is pragmatic to both protect existing strongholds and build on those foundations. But treating as risky deep-red races and the populist candidates who could win them is exactly the problem.
Democrats should keep prioritizing safe and competitive races, but they must also must make room for calculated investments in heavily Republican districts — especially when a populist, locally rooted candidate has the potential to resonate across party lines. This approach could help rebuild trust in communities that have long felt abandoned by Democrats, cultivate a stronger pipeline of candidates and steadily chip away at Republican strongholds. Drey’s win proves it’s time to rethink the party’s traditional investment strategy and back promising local contenders wherever they emerge.
Political maps are not static. Republicans’ rural dominance is not inevitable. Though Drey’s victory came in an off-year election with fewer races and more money available, the core lessons about which candidates can win — and how to support them — still hold true. That is exactly why this race should be seen as a test case for a broader strategy, not a one-off success.
Democrats don’t have to win every race, but they do have to show up in every race. Iowa just proved that even in red states, voters are still listening. That will matter in the 2026 Senate race, with Democratic populist candidates like Nathan Sage on the ballot. If Democrats are willing to back authentic, local voices, they won’t just compete in hostile territory. They could redraw the entire political map.
Ryan W. Powers is a legal analyst and former Big Law attorney, licensed to practice in New York and Washington D.C. He writes a weekly newsletter on democracy, dissent and the law.
