Steve King: Republican congressman known for racist rhetoric loses primary race in Iowa

The controversial Iowa Republican congressman Steve King has been ousted in Tuesday’s primary, losing his re-election race to the state senator Randy Feenstra.

King had faced the re-election fight of his life. The nine-term conservative congressman, who was repeatedly reprimanded by leaders in his own party for racist rhetoric and interactions with white nationalists, found himself in a nightmare situation for an incumbent congressman.

He had been stripped of his committee assignments, abandoned by more mainstream Republicans and chastised by party leadership. He had even lost support from prominent conservatives in Iowa.

Feenstra declared victory on Tuesday evening, promising he’d deliver “results for the families, farmers and communities of Iowa”.

King on Tuesday faced four Republican primary challengers, including Feenstra. Several of King’s former supporters had thrown their weight behind Feenstra.

For years, King was a source of headaches for Republican party leadership.

He has tied immigrant children to being drug mules, questioned whether minorities have contributed anything valuable to western civilization and displayed a Confederate flag on his desk. He has wondered why it is offensive to be called a white nationalist. He has also associated with far-right figures including the Dutch politician Geert Wilders, and once argued to a far-right Austrian publication that elites were trying to reduce the white population and increase minorities.

Even the Republican Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, suggested that King seek other careers.

In November, Feenstra will face his Democratic opponent, who is hardly a shoo-in. In the last five presidential elections, Iowa’s fourth congressional district has voted for the Democratic presidential nominee only once – in 2008 for Barack Obama.

Iowa’s vote was held alongside a host of other primary contests on Tuesday that tested the nation’s ability to run elections while balancing a pandemic and sweeping social unrest.

Joe Biden, the de-facto Democratic presidential candidate, was on the cusp of formally securing the nomination after winning hundreds more delegates in Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Montana, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and South Dakota.

Other victories of the night included Steny Hoyer, the House majority leader – who won an easy nomination in the Democratic primary in Maryland’s fifth district, a seat he has held for 40 years – and Yvette Herrell, who won the Republican primary in New Mexico’s second district.