Admiral Michael Franken
With the entrance of retired U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Michael Franken into Iowa’s U.S. Senate race, octogenarian Senator Chuck Grassley faces the final, biggest fight of his long political life. As the Republican candidate, Grassley can hope that Iowa Democrats turn, instead, to a far weaker candidate, Abby Finkenauer, a 32-year-old “career” politician from eastern Iowa.
In Congress, national security leadership is at stake. In the event Franken sends Senator Grassley into a well-deserved retirement in 2022, joining defense-oriented Republican Joni Ernst in the Senate, Iowa will change. With two national security-focused senators in Congress, Iowa gets instant national security “street cred,” as well as a prime seat at the table for any new defense-related investment.
With Franken in office, Iowa would get a leader who is ideally placed to nurture Iowa’s often-overlooked manufacturing sector. The sector already contributes a lot to the state, amounting to 17% of Iowa’s gross domestic product, per state estimates, while its longtime mainstay of agriculture contributes only 11%.
As an emerging manufacturing center, Iowa is primed for strong national security growth. In comparison to other states and the District of Columbia, Iowa is underserved, ranking 38th in total defense spending. But with defense heavyweight Raytheon in Linn County, the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant in Des Moines County, and two big defense bases—the Rock Island Arsenal and Offutt Air Force Base—perched on Iowa borders, Iowa, with the right leadership, has a real opportunity to continue diversifying the state’s economic foundation. And with 44% of Iowa’s $2.5 billion in defense business coming from the Navy, having a former Admiral in the Senate is a good thing.
Primary Challenge: Getting The Most Votes For The Money
Despite almost forty years of military service, Franken is no political novice. During a break in forward-deployments, Franken spent a tour of duty serving as the Navy’s Chief of Legislative Affairs in Washington, D.C., learning how to navigate through Congress and move key legislation forward.
This is also the second time Franken has run for a Senate seat. The experience shows. Franken’s folksy demeanor is already widely recognized around the state, and the Admiral’s small political team landed on its feet this month, opening the campaign with a blizzard of statewide political endorsements and a national media blitz.
But Franken is no career politician. He’s cut from a different mold than America’s professional political class. That may cost him. Franken loathes fundraising, and rather than focus on bringing in big dollars from out-of-state activists, he has, like a typical Iowan farmer, focused on efficiency.
His lean team stretches every dollar as far as it can go. In the 2020 Democratic primary, Franken captured 25% percent of the Democratic electorate with a bare-bones budget, presenting a compelling enough message that he only needed to put forth $14.50 a voter. His competitor, failed former U.S. House candidate Theresa Greenfield—after being prematurely anointed by the Washington, D.C.-based Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee as the favored candidate—enjoyed a $10 million windfall for the Senate primary. But her message was stale, and, to get democratic primary voters to turn out, she had to spend an equivalent of $75 dollars a vote. And then, after raising a massive $53 million dollar war chest for the general election, the hapless Greenfield campaign was trounced by incumbent Senator Joni Ernst.
Today, Franken’s competition, 32-year-old Abby Finkenauer, is on the same losing path. After jumping into the race three months ago, this “career” politician has raised just over a million dollars. To conventional tastemakers at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, that may sound great, but a glance at campaign finance data shows that almost 25% of Finkenauer’s current war chest has come from California-based donors—an instant turn-off for average Iowa voters.
The money hasn’t stuck around either; filings with the Federal Election Commission show that Finkenauer’s campaign organization has already burned through $422,041. In the array of spending on consultants and digital fundraising—outside of Doordash, Uber
Abby Finkenauer and Joe Biden campaign before the 2020 election.
Iowa’s Waning Apatite For Career Politicians
With Michael Franken in the race, Senator Grassley has a real problem. After being brutally handled by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee during his 2020 race, Franken has the non-partisan callouses that befit an independent legislator—something that Iowans tend to like. And Franken, after his decades of non-partisan military service, is untainted by association with the Republican Party’s traditional electoral hobgoblins—the unpopular Democratic leaders of the Senate and House.
At the age of 88, Senator Grassley has little more to offer Iowans. He has, effectively, completed his life’s work, transforming the national judiciary. But now he has nothing to present Iowa voters other than his grandson, Patrick Grassley, positioning the next generation to assume leadership of the Grassley family’s political business. The younger Grassley entered Iowa politics at 22 and now, after years in the State House, he’s primed to leave the Iowa farm-league and “go pro” in the halls of Congress.
Finkenauer is also following the Grassley family playbook. After taking her first political job at the age of 16, politicking is all Finkenauer knows of the world. Quickly converting a two-term stint in the Iowa House of Representatives into a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives at age 29—Finkenauer was on her way to great things. But her lack of life experience became glaringly apparent in Washington.
Finkenauer, as one of the youngest members of the House, went to work, but was quickly out-hustled by her more charismatic and better-organized peer, the then 29-year-old former bartender, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. With neither a national profile nor a resonant political message, Iowa voters dropped Finkenauer after a single term, sending the aspiring politician back to her “hometown” of Dubuque—to a county Finkenauer only managed to win by an embarrassingly small margin of 278 votes.
Building Upon Iowa’s National Security Promise
Dismissed as a purely domestic sideshow by D.C. taste-makers, the outcome of Iowa’s Senate campaign has real national security implications. The mere prospect that Iowa might get two Senators, Franken and Ernst—each from both sides of the aisle—on the Armed Services Committee should be enough for all America’s major defense contractors to start drafting Iowa-focused expansion plans.
But first, Franken must win his race. It won’t be easy. Both Finkenauer and Grassley are already positioning to attack Franken for entering the U.S. Navy and “leaving” Iowa. But they don’t realize that the true measure of an Iowan comes from carrying Iowan values all around the world, and then returning, refreshing the state with new experiences, new ideas and new energy. That is what Franken has to offer.
Service outside Iowa helps Iowans. Tom Harkin, a successful five-term Iowa Senator, did five years of active duty in the Navy, and those experiences made him a far better politician. Former Iowa Governor Terry Branstad left Iowa to serve as the U.S. Ambassador to China. Some Iowans never make it back. Sioux City native Harry Hopkins used his Iowan values to help President Franklin D. Roosevelt establish the Great Depression-busing “New Deal” as well as win World War II. And, after pouring his energy—and ultimately his life—into saving the country, he returned to be interred at Grinnell, Iowa.
Franken’s congressional acumen and real-world experience has real potential to build up Iowa’s defense industry and advance the diversification of Iowa’s agriculture-based economy. Iowa is primed for defense sector growth—it just needs an effective Senate cheerleader. Iowa voters may not see themselves as big contributors to U.S. national security, but, in the tough years to come, Iowa can, if voters pick the right leaders now, become a vibrant defense powerhouse.
