Josh Turek Calls Himself a “Common-Sense Moderate.” Three DEI Votes Tell Iowa Something Different.
On July 6, 2026, the Washington Free Beacon published a review of state Rep. Josh Turek’s (D-Council Bluffs) floor votes in the Iowa House and found a pattern that cuts against the brand his U.S. Senate campaign is built on. Turek, who describes himself to voters as a “common-sense, bipartisan legislator” and a “prairie populist,” voted against three separate bills between April 2024 and May 2025 that would have curtailed race-based diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in Iowa’s public colleges, universities, and K-12 schools — two of which passed anyway and are now Iowa law.
This is not the horse-race story Civic Intelligence already published on Turek’s primary win over state Sen. Zach Wahls (D) and his general-election matchup with Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-IA) for retiring Sen. Joni Ernst’s (R-IA) open seat — that account is here. This page is about the record itself: the bill numbers, the vote counts, and what the programs he voted to protect actually did.
It matters because of where this is happening. Turek is running in a state President Trump carried by 13 points in 2024, in a cycle where opposition to DEI programs has been a defining plank of the national Republican platform, including Trump’s own January 2025 executive order ending DEI programs across the federal government. A Democrat who wants to win a statewide race in Iowa on a moderate label needs that label to survive contact with his own voting record. On DEI, the documented floor votes below say it does not.
- 3 — anti-DEI bills state Rep. Josh Turek (D-Council Bluffs) voted against between April 2024 and May 2025 · Source: Washington Free Beacon
- 2 of 3 — became Iowa law anyway — SF 2435 (signed 2024) and HF 856 (signed 2025) · Source: Iowa Legislature, legis.iowa.gov
- Nearly $130,000 — what West Des Moines schools spent on a two-year “Deep Equity” consulting contract, one of the programs the vetoed bills targeted · Source: Washington Free Beacon
- +13 pts — Trump's 2024 margin over Harris in Iowa — the backdrop for Turek's “common-sense moderate” branding · Source: AP election results
- 0 — times Turek's own campaign platform page mentions DEI, critical race theory, or these three votes · Source: turek4iowa.com/platform, reviewed July 2026
The Free Beacon’s report, amplified the same day in an NRSC press release, frames Turek’s votes as a direct contradiction of the campaign persona he has built since entering the Senate race. Turek is a four-time Paralympian and two-time wheelchair-basketball gold medalist, born with spina bifida, who flipped a Trump-district Iowa House seat in 2022 and has spent this Senate campaign talking up the tax cuts and public-safety bills he passed with Republican votes. DEI was not one of the issues where he crossed the aisle. On all three bills the Free Beacon identified, he voted with his party’s left flank and against the bill.
State Rep. Josh Turek (D) — Iowa House, District 20 (Council Bluffs, Pottawattamie County) since 2023. Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, 2026.
Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-IA, 2nd District) — Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, 2026, seeking the seat Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) is vacating.
The general election is November 3, 2026. Recent Fox News polling (June 23–27, 2026) shows Turek leading Hinson 50%–46%, inside the margin of error.
None of the three bills below were obscure procedural votes. Each reached the Iowa House floor for a recorded roll call, each drew national attention as part of a broader Republican-led effort to roll back DEI programs in state government that mirrors what President Trump ordered federally on his first day back in office, and each gave Turek a clean, public, on-the-record choice.
The first vote came in April 2024, before Turek was a statewide candidate. SF 2435, the education appropriations bill for the 90th General Assembly, carried a division barring Iowa’s Board of Regents universities — the University of Iowa, Iowa State, and the University of Northern Iowa — from establishing, staffing, or funding a diversity, equity, and inclusion office. The Iowa House passed it 52–43 on April 18, 2024; the Senate concurred 32–14 the next day. Turek voted no. Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) signed it into law on May 9, 2024, with the DEI-office ban taking effect July 1, 2025.
Almost a year later, on March 18, 2025, the House took up two more bills the same day. HF 269, dubbed the “Freedom from Indoctrination Act,” would have barred Regents universities from requiring students to take a DEI- or critical-race-theory-related course to graduate, and from pressuring faculty to build DEI content into their courses. It passed the House 63–34. Turek voted no. The bill stalled in a Senate committee and was marked “Engrossed — Dead” on March 31, 2025; it never became law, though the House floor vote is a matter of record.
The same day, the House also passed HF 856 61–37, barring Iowa cities, counties, K-12 districts, community colleges, and public universities from spending public money to fund DEI offices or DEI-officer positions, and creating a private right of action for anyone to sue over violations. Turek voted no again. The Senate amended the bill to drop a provision that would have targeted private colleges’ state tuition-grant funding, and the House concurred in the amended version 59–32 on May 13, 2025 — Turek voting no a third time on the same underlying bill. Gov. Reynolds signed HF 856 on May 27, 2025, effective July 1, 2025.
SF 2435 (April 2024) — Bars Regents universities from DEI offices or DEI-officer hiring. House: 52–43. Turek: No. Signed into law May 9, 2024.
HF 269 (March 2025) — “Freedom from Indoctrination Act”: bars mandatory DEI/CRT coursework for graduation. House: 63–34. Turek: No. Died in Senate committee, March 31, 2025 — never enacted.
HF 856 (March–May 2025) — Bars state and local entities, K-12 through public universities, from funding DEI offices or officers. House: 61–37, then 59–32 on concurrence. Turek: No, twice. Signed into law May 27, 2025.
The bills Turek opposed did not target abstractions. The Free Beacon’s reporting cites specific, named examples of the DEI infrastructure Iowa’s public institutions had built before the legislature intervened: a University of Northern Iowa strategic plan that explicitly committed to increasing faculty and student diversity by demographic category, an “Ethnomathematics” course offering, and equity training in the Iowa City Community School District covering concepts like implicit bias and privilege. The Iowa City district ran its own Department of Equity until the state funding ban took effect; West Des Moines schools spent nearly $130,000on a two-year “Deep Equity” consulting contract with an outside firm.
After SF 2435 and HF 856 took effect, the consequences were immediate and public. Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa both formally disbanded their DEI offices to come into compliance with state law, and the Board of Regents required each institution to amend its strategic plan to strip out diversity-specific language and report back to the legislature and governor on compliance. Any Iowan can now sue a public entity under HF 856’s private-cause-of-action provision if they believe it is still funding a banned DEI office or position.
Asked by the Free Beacon about the votes, a Turek campaign spokeswoman did not dispute the record. Instead, she pointed to a different set of bills entirely.
“Josh will work with anyone to get things done for Iowans, which is why he has repeatedly worked with Republicans to cut taxes for Iowa families and keep dangerous criminals off the street.”
Turek for Iowa campaign spokeswoman, quoted by the Washington Free Beacon, July 6, 2026
Notably, Turek’s own campaign platform never mentions the DEI votes, or DEI at all — his education page promises to restore public-school funding and repeal school vouchers, with no reference to the three floor votes now drawing national attention. On the trail and on X, his message is populist and economic, not cultural: he tells crowds Iowa is “ready to flip this seat” and that voters are “sick of multi-millionaire politicians like Ashley Hinson selling us out.”
Packed house and high energy last night with Southeast Dallas County Dems! I talked to folks who are more excited and invested in this election than ever before, because they know 2026 is going to be different. Iowa is ready to flip this seat.
We're winning this race because Iowans are sick of multi-millionaire politicians like Ashley Hinson selling us out. Join us and help us push for change.
Hinson’s campaign has not been shy about pressing the contradiction. At the Iowa GOP’s state convention and again on primary night, Hinson told delegates and reporters that Turek is “masquerading as a good old Iowa moderate” and is “nothing of the sort,” while NRSC spokesman Alex Latcham has separately called Turek “a far-left politician who is bankrolled by Chuck Schumer.” The DEI vote record is now the specific receipt Republicans point to when they make that case, in place of the broader ideological label alone.
Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-IA): Turek “has been masquerading as a good old Iowa moderate, he is nothing of the sort.”
NRSC spokesman Alex Latcham: Turek is “a far-left politician who is bankrolled by Chuck Schumer.”
Source: Iowa Capital Dispatch, “Lines of attack solidify against Iowa candidates for the general election,” June 5, 2026.
None of this happened in a vacuum. On his first day back in office, January 20, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14151, “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing,” ordering every federal agency to close its DEI offices, end DEI-related contracts, and report any remaining DEI staff to the White House budget office within 60 days. Iowa’s SF 2435, HF 269, and HF 856 are the state-legislative mirror of that same policy fight — passed by a Republican trifecta in a state where the president’s anti-DEI message tested well, and opposed, each time, by the Democrat who is now this cycle’s best chance at flipping Iowa’s open Senate seat.
That is the real stakes of this story for the “common-sense moderate” label. Trump carried Iowa by 13 points in 2024, up from 9 in 2016 and 8 in 2020 — a state moving steadily rightward at the presidential level for a decade. Turek’s path to the Senate runs through persuading a meaningful number of those Trump voters that he is different in kind from the national Democratic Party on the issues they care about. DEI, specifically K-12 and university DEI programs, consistently polls as one of the more unpopular items in that basket, even among many Democrats and independents. A voting record showing three consecutive no-votes against rolling it back is exactly the kind of receipt that turns a “moderate” argument into a paid Republican ad.
Ending the radical DEI agenda in our federal government was one of the first things I did back in office, and states like Iowa are following that same commonsense lead. Any Democrat who votes to keep this stuff alive in the schools isn't a moderate — they're protecting the same failed ideology, just at the state level.
Paraphrased commentary · not a verbatim post
Paraphrase reflecting President Trump's consistent, well-documented public position on DEI programs — including Executive Order 14151, signed Jan. 20, 2025 — not a verbatim post about this specific Iowa vote.
None of this settles the underlying policy argument on the merits — reasonable people disagree about whether university DEI offices or K-12 equity training are worth funding, and Turek is entitled to have voted his convictions on all three bills. What it does settle is the branding question. “Common-sense moderate” is a claim about how a politician actually votes, not just how he campaigns, and on this specific issue, in this specific state, at this specific moment, the floor votes and the label point in opposite directions.
A voting record is the one part of a 'moderate' pitch a campaign can't rewrite. Turek voted no on all three DEI rollback bills; two are now law. That's not spin either side needs to argue about — it's the House Journal.
Paraphrased commentary · not a verbatim post
Editorial context — paraphrase of this report's framing of the vote record.
State Rep. Josh Turek (D-Council Bluffs) voted against three separate bills curbing race-based DEI programs in Iowa’s public schools and universities between April 2024 and May 2025. Two became law over his objection: SF 2435, banning DEI offices at Iowa’s Regents universities, and HF 856, banning public DEI funding statewide from K-12 through the university system. A third, HF 269, passed the House with his “no” on record before dying in the Senate. His campaign has not disputed any of it — it has simply not talked about it, pointing instead to tax and public-safety bills where he did cross the aisle.
Whether that makes Turek a bad senator, a principled one, or simply a conventional Democrat running in a state that has moved right is a matter of political judgment this page leaves to Iowa’s voters. What it does not leave open to debate is whether the record and the “common-sense moderate” label match on this issue. The House Journal says no three times. The campaign website says nothing at all.
Established, by legislative record: Turek's votes against SF 2435, HF 269, and HF 856, the bills' vote tallies, their sponsors, and their effective dates.
Established, by his own campaign materials: Turek's self-description as a “common-sense, bipartisan legislator” and the absence of any mention of DEI or these votes on his platform page.
A matter of political judgment, not fact: whether opposing these specific bills was the right substantive call. This page does not adjudicate that question.
