House Speaker Mike Johnson says Iowa is at the center of the battle to maintain Republican control of the U.S. House.
“You are literally the tip of the spear on the front lines,” Johnson said Friday evening. “What happens in Iowa has a big influence around the country and we’re going to do our part here.”
A super PAC that backs Republicans running for U.S. House seats plans to spend at least $11 million helping Iowa candidates in 2026 and during his latest trip to Iowa Johnson held private events for Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks as well as Chris McGowan, the Republican running in Iowa’s 4th congressional district, and Joe Mitchell, the GOP candidate in the 2nd district. Johnson capped his two-day swing with a speech at a forum organized by the Christian conservative group The Family Leader.
“In this history of America there have only been a handful of times when the actual experiment of self-governance was on the ballot and it just so happens this November is that time,” Johnson said. “It’s not just left or right. We’re trying to maintain the very foundations. ‘If the foundations be destroyed, what will the righteous do?’ This is a spiritual battle.”
Johnson uses the phrase “avowed communists” to describe candidates who identify themselves as Democratic Socialists and Johnson said they’d do “dangerous things: if elected. “That is not campaign rhetoric. That is not hyperbole,” Johnson said. “We are in the battle of our lives right now.”
Republican Congresswoman Ashley Hinson, who is running for Iowa’s open U.S. Senate seat, told the crowd there are people in Washington, D.C. who want to erase the Christian values shaped the United States. “I’m not a part of that team,” Hinson said. “My Christian faith is something that I display proudly in my office. I have my Bible out for every visitor who comes to my congressional office to see. It’s open to the Golden Rule, the book of Matthew.”
Zach Lahn, the Republican Party’s candidate for governor, and outgoing GOP Governor Kim Reynolds also addressed the crowd and talked about their Christian faith.
