Support Democrat J.D. Scholten’s Bid to Unseat Noxious Iowa House Rep Steve King

Support Democrat J.D. Scholten’s bid to unseat noxious Iowa House Rep Steve King.

In the age of Trump, Republican incumbents in garnet-red parts of America are finally drawing Democratic challengers. Steve King leads that list. He’s represented Iowa’s 4th District since 2002, and he’s running again in 2018.

He is also a racist. He has enough self-awareness to avoid tweeting slurs or saying them when microphones are live and cameras are rolling, but there’s no doubt–the man is a racist.

In a 2013 interview with the right-wing news and opinion website NewsMax, and evidently in the context of discussing legislative protections for people who came to the U.S. as undocumented children, he said:

For every one who’s a valedictorian, there’s another 100 out there who weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert. (Cite is below.)

https://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/24/no-comment-necessary-drug-mules/

In 2017, King tweeted praise for a far-right Dutch politician and said, ‘We can’t restore civilization with someone else’s babies.’ (Cite is below.)

Most recently, King was revealed as the source of false information that Donald Trump mentioned in a June 22, 2018 event where he tried to smear all undocumented people. Trump claimed that since September 11, 2001, 63,000 Americans had died at the hands of who he called “illegal aliens.”

Snopes and the Washington Post traced the claim to a mid-2000s blog post by King, and both laid out evidence that debunked it:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/06/22/the-original-source-for-trumps-claim-of-63000-immigrant-murders-bad-data-from-steve-king-in-2005/?utm_term=.fa80bc5ed3e4

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/have-undocumented-killed-63000-us-9-11/

Where does J.D. Scholten come in, you may ask? He’s stepped up to run against King as a Democrat.

Scholten is a fifth-generation Iowan, a former professional baseball player, a current litigation paralegal, and a first-time candidate for office. He works Twitter well, and he has the support of the student activists from Parkland, Florida, who got behind him after King’s campaign shared a Facebook meme that mocked Emma Gonzales, a prominent member of the Parkland group.

Read an April 2018 Slate story about how the Parkland activists came to champion Scholten:

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/04/can-parkland-activists-help-democrat-j-d-scholten-defeat-iowa-rep-steve-king.html

But let’s be clear-eyed here. Of all the Democratic candidates for office who OTYCD has featured to date, Scholten might have the toughest climb. King fought off a Republican challenger in the June 5 primary with ease, beating her 3-to-1. The Cook Political report rates Iowa’s 4th as Solid Republican.

King is the longtime incumbent and he’s won re-election after saying toe-curlingly awful things before. It seems that a fair number of Iowans shrug and vote for him (and there are some who grin and vote for him, don’t be fooled). And registered Republican voters significantly outnumber registered Democratic voters in Iowa’s 4th.

But as they say, you can’t win if you don’t play. Scholten is suited up and ready to go. Have a look at his campaign site and the links below and consider supporting him.

See Scholten’s website:

https://www.scholten4iowa.com

See his Meet JD page:

https://www.scholten4iowa.com/Meet-Jd

See his Endorsements page:

https://www.scholten4iowa.com/endorsements

Read a May 31, 2018 Op-Ed in the Sioux City Journal in which Scholten explains why Iowans should vote for him:

https://siouxcityjournal.com/opinion/columnists/j-d-scholten-here-s-why-you-should-vote-for/article_5162d965-a0a2-539a-b3ec-e6971f2fe9c5.html

Choose Scholten for your Core Four:

https://onethingyoucando.com/2018/04/08/choose-your-core-four-for-2018/

Donate to Scholten’s campaign:

https://secure.actblue.com/donate/scholtenhome