Why Is Joni Ernst Missing Newspaper Endorsement Interviews, and Why Are Democrats So Happy About It?

Iowa Democrats have a media problem. They've had one for months. The unwelcome label of "gaffe-prone" has been attached to their U.S. Senate candidate, Bruce Braley, ever since a supporter (seriously a supporter!) uploaded video of him degrading Senator Chuck Grassley as a "farmer from Iowa" unfit to lead the Judiciary Committee. Republicans have cheerfully steered the narrative of the race since then, in which state Senator Joni Ernst is a thrilling, unifying candidate and Braley can't stop stepping on rakes.

Nothing seemed to stick to Ernst, not even her primary-period indulgence in theories of nullification or of UN domination of American urban planning. "How does this GOP Senate candidate keep getting away with such terrible gaffes?" asked Mother Jones's Tim Murphy last month. Media Matters's Eric Boehlert lacerated the press for writing endlessly about Braley's dispute with a neighbor whose chickens kept ambling onto his law, a story mythologized by TV ads that portrayed Braley literally waving a lawsuit at farmers. (This did not happen.)