‘Beer-drinking, working-class populist’: JD Scholten, Iowa Democrat challenging senator Joni Ernst

The lawmaker will run against Ernst, who had told a town hall ‘we’re all going to die’ in reply to Medicaid cut concerns

When Iowa senator Joni Ernst now infamously told a town hall audience last month that “we’re all going to die” in response to concerns about proposed cuts to Medicaid in Donald Trump’s signature spending bill, her Democratic challenger JD Scholten was on his way to a funeral.

Scholten, a state lawmaker and minor league baseball player, said it was at that funeral for a local Democratic activist that his tentative plans to run for Congress for a third time – this time for the upper chamber – suddenly became more certain.

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