#2020 RNC: Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst thanks Trump for standing up for farmers

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Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst speaks during the third day of the virtual Republican National Convention.
RNC 2020 via Sipa USA

Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, whose state was devastated earlier this month by a derecho windstorm, praised President Trump Wednesday at the 2020 Republican National Convention for delivering to those in need.

“Houses, farms were destroyed,” she said. “About one-third of our crops here were damaged.

“In some cases, these storms wiped out a lifetime of work. And yet, Iowa farmers didn’t hesitate to grab their chainsaws and check on their neighbors.”

Trump followed their example by coming to the aid of the Hawkeye State, Ernst said.

“President Trump quickly signed an emergency declaration for Iowa to provide relief,” she said.

By contrast, Ernst portrayed the era of President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden as disastrous for Iowa farmers, crushed by regulations and unfavorable international trade deals.

A win in November for Biden and running mate Sen. Kamala Harris of California would undo farmers’ hard-fought progress under the Trump administration, Ernst said.

“This election is a choice between two very different paths,” she said. “Freedom, prosperity and economic growth under a Trump-Pence administration, or the Biden-Harris path, paid by liberal coastal elites and radical environmentalists, an America where farmers are punished, jobs are destroyed and taxes crush the middle class.”

Like many of her fellow speakers on a night honoring America as “Land of the Heroes,” Ernst is a military veteran, commanding an Iowa National Guard company in the Middle East during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Ernst interviewed in 2016 as a potential running mate for then-candidate Trump, but ultimately withdrew her name from the process to focus on her marriage.

Though she remained in the halls of Congress, Ernst remained a staunch supporter of Trump, along with fellow Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, president pro tempore of the body.

A rare point of divergence came in May 2019 when the veteran said she found North Korean missile tests “very disturbing,” as Trump embraced a more diplomatic stance toward the Hermit Kingdom.

Ernst’s RNC appearance, however, came as her position in the Hawkeye State may be precarious.

She has recently watched her approval rating dip in the purple state, and is facing a stiff challenge for re-election as the GOP looks to cling to control of the Senate.