Iowa Democrat Finkenauer seeking GOP Sen. Grassley's seat

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Democrat Abby Finkenauer, a former congresswoman, is running for Republican Chuck Grassley's U.S. Senate seat, hoping her blue-collar credentials will propel her forward in a state that has grown more conservative over the years.

The 32-year-old former state lawmaker, who announced her candidacy by video Thursday morning, would offer a stark contrast to the 87-year-old Grassley, who was elected to his first term in the Senate eight years before Finkenauer was born.

“I’m running ... to make sure that Iowans and, quite frankly, our country has someone sitting in the United States Senate representing them and working for them every day who actually understand working families,” Finkenauer told The Associated Press in an interview before the video release.

Finkenauer, despite losing her House seat in 2020 after one term, remains a youthful prospect in the Iowa Democratic Party, which has struggled to produce a new generation for statewide office. Along with 38-year-old Democrat Dave Muhlbauer, a farmer who previously announced his bid for Grassley's seat, she is hoping Grassley's slipping poll numbers provide an opening to revive a shrinking segment of the party’s once diverse electorate: rural voters.

Grassley has said he will announce by November whether he will seek an eighth term, though he talks regularly with campaign aides and reported this month having $2.5 million in his campaign account as of the end of June.

Despite job approval that's ebbed in the past decade, Grassley would be the favorite to win reelection and faces a nominal primary opponent in state Sen. Jim Carlin. State and local Democratic officials have said the party has receded in the onetime battleground state, particularly from the industrial river towns they once claimed as bastions, notably in Finkenauer's former...