Nathan Sage, a Democratic candidate hoping to unseat Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) in next year's midterms, said he wants to "tear the Democratic Party down and build it back up from the from the studs."
"I think that there's a big portion of people that are in the middle, that are underrepresented, that are looking for representation," Sage, who has highlighted his military background and emphasized the working class in his early campaign materials, said in an interview with MSNBC's Jonathan Capehart on Sunday. "And I want to be somebody that brings them to the Democratic Party, because I want to tear the Democratic party down and build it back up from the from the studs."
He didn't elaborate on his plans to dismantle the party during the MSNBC interview, but he emphasized he would focus on helping people who are struggling. His campaign website stresses his belief that "billionaires and multi-national monopolies (have) bought up both parties."
"We're trying every day to make ends meet, and we're trying to survive in a world right now that it just seems like, we're the richest country in the world and it's just not going our way," Sage told Capehart. "I think that there's a lot of people like me that are looking for help and looking for somebody to represent them."
Sage, the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which is the party's campaign arm for the Senate, didn't immediately respond to The Hill's requests for comment.
Ernst, who is seeking a third term next year, won with nearly 52 percent of the vote the last time she was on the ballot in 2020 in a race that had been deemed a toss-up at one point.
An early poll released in December — after President Trump soundly won Iowa's 2024 election with nearly 57 percent of the vote — found that just under half of Iowa voters surveyed said they plan to vote for Ernst, also a military veteran, next year. The other half was split almost evenly between people who said they planned to vote for someone else and those who said they were undecided.
Ernst has held multiple GOP leadership posts and is the founder and chair of the Senate DOGE Caucus, which was formed to support the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that is spearheaded by tech billionaire Elon Musk.
Republicans currently hold 53 seats in the Senate and the chamber's majority. Thirty-three Senate seats, two-thirds of which are held by Republicans including Ernst's, are up for election next year.
Ernst could also face a GOP primary challenger after receiving backlash for initially resisting President Trump's nomination of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth before ultimately voting for the former Fox News personality.
In his campaign launch video, Sage describes himself as a "dad, mechanic, sports radio host (and) child of a trailer park" while wearing a black hoodie emblazoned with an American flag.
"The D.C. elites, the ruling class, they don't want me, but I think maybe you will," Sage says in the ad, before he calls Ernst a "corporate Republican" and says he will "kick (her) a--" in the election.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee — the campaign arm that backs GOP candidates in the upper chamber — criticized Sage's use of profanity and reaffirmed support for Ernst.
"Democrats seem obsessed with saying 'f---ing' and 'a--' as the strategy to win back the voters that rejected them in 2024," National Republican Senatorial Committee spokesman Nick Puglia said in a statement at the onset of Sage's campaign last week. "It doesn’t matter which radical Democrat gets nominated in their messy primary because Iowans are going to re-elect Senator Joni Ernst to keep fighting for them in 2026."
Asked about the GOP's response, Sage defended his message and expletives he may use to convey it.
"I live in the real world," he told Capehart. "I'm a working-class candidate; this is how we chat."
"If you don't like it, I'm sorry you have politicians on your side that say some evil things — you don't hold them accountable," he added. "I'm going to say the things that need to be said so people understand that we're tired of what's going on."
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