ICYMI: Paralympian and U.S. Senate Candidate Josh Turek on the Olympics Opening Ceremony

ICYMI: Paralympian and U.S. Senate Candidate Josh Turek on the Olympics Opening Ceremony

Turek discussed how the Olympics can bring Americans together and how high-level sports has prepared him to win this U.S. Senate race

Des Moines, IA – In case you missed it, four-time Paralympian, two-time gold medalist, Iowa State Representative, and candidate for U.S. Senate Josh Turek spoke to POLITICO and National Journal about the relationship between sports and politics. 

NATIONAL JOURNAL: Capitol Hill’s Olympic Drought

Olympians might be out of luck in the 2026 midterms, but Paralympians could strike congressional gold. In Iowa, state Rep. Josh Turek (D)—who won two gold medals and one bronze for wheelchair basketball in 2012, 2016, and 2020—is running to replace retiring Sen. Joni Ernst (R), potentially becoming the first Paralympian in Congress.

“What high-level basketball taught me is just put your head down, do the work, and just ignore all the external noise,” Turek told Hotline. “That’s very helpful in politics.”

POLITICO: Faster, Higher, Stronger — Together?

Vance, often Trump’s intellectual translator and political amplifier, channeled some American exceptionalism in a far more conciliatory tone than his trademark pugnaciousness when speaking to athletes at the Team USA Welcome Experience in Milan this week. “The whole country — Democrat, Republican, independent — we’re all rooting for you and we’re cheering for you,” Vance told the athletes.

What, we wondered, did Josh Turek, the two-time Paralympic gold medalist and Iowa Democratic state representative running for Senate, think of that statement from Vance?

“He’s absolutely right,” Turek said. The country is in need of a “Miracle on Ice” moment, he said, invoking the improbable U.S. hockey victory over Russia in the 1980 Winter Olympics. Back then, Turek said, the victory “actually changed the energy and the environment in the country.”

Indeed, one of the delegation’s objectives is to emphasize the “positive power of sports to foster cross-cultural understanding, peace, and unity,” according to a State Department memo viewed by Playbook.