Joni Ernst wins Iowa Senate seat, becoming first woman Iowa elected to Congress

Republican Joni Ernst defeated Democrat Bruce Braley in Iowa's 2014 U.S. Senate election, winning 52.1% of the vote to claim the seat retiring Sen. Tom Harkin held for 30 years. Ernst became Iowa's first female senator and the first woman Iowa voters sent to Congress. A lieutenant colonel in the Iowa Army National Guard and Iraq War veteran, Ernst ran a campaign centered on her farm upbringing and military service, including a television ad that opened: "I grew up castrating hogs on an Iowa farm."