Winners & Losers | Broken Supermajorities & Institutions
One state finds its voice. One man silences the rest.
Welcome back to Winners & Losers, your weekly reckoning with the people building power — and the ones demolishing everything that keeps us alive. If you’re looking for signs that the future isn’t written yet, look to conservative Iowa, where a no-name Democrat just broke a Republican supermajority. If you want a sign that our institutions are still rotting from the inside out, look no further than Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Let’s start with the good news.
Catelin Drey didn’t run in a blue state. She didn’t win in a Biden district. She didn’t even have a major party machine behind her. What she had was a reason. In a state where the GOP has dominated for over a decade, she campaigned like what she believed actually mattered. And enough voters agreed to hand Democrats something they haven’t had in years: relevance.
That relevance has material stakes. Before Tuesday, Iowa Republicans had a supermajority — the kind of power that turns states into testing labs for national authoritarianism. Now? They’ll need to negotiate. Or at least pretend to.
The same can’t be said for RFK Jr., whose quiet war against public health just escalated. While you were living your life, Kennedy used his Cabinet position to roll back vaccine access for millions of Americans — not because it was medically necessary, but because it fit his worldview. This is what happens when conspiracy becomes policy. The fringe isn’t fringe anymore. It’s federally funded.
Catelin Drey, Winner
In most of the country, Iowa is treated like a political punchline. A shorthand for corn, ethanol, and caucus chaos. But what just happened in SD-30 deserves more than a shrug. Because Catelin Drey just won a seat no one thought was winnable — and changed the balance of power in her state.
This wasn’t a blue wave district. This wasn’t suburbia drifting left. This was a rural, working-class area that Trump carried easily — and that Democrats hadn’t bothered contesting in years. In 2022, Republicans ran unopposed. This time, they lost.
And the win wasn’t squeaky. It was a six-point margin, powered by real organizing, real conversations, and real pain — from underfunded schools to rising healthcare costs to a GOP that spent more time bullying trans kids than helping farmers.
Drey’s victory strips Republicans of their veto-proof supermajority in the Iowa Senate. That’s not just a talking point. That means every new restriction, every corporate tax cut, every ALEC-written education bill now faces a harder road. Even one vote of opposition could make a difference.
It’s also a warning to national Democrats: stop ignoring places like this. Rural America isn’t red by destiny — it’s red by abandonment. Drey proved that voters haven’t given up. They’ve just been left behind.