JD Scholten: Here's how I nearly beat Steve King and here's why he keeps winning. So far. if you're a farmer on your combine listening to radio reports on low soybean prices, your congressman meeting with Neo-Nazis seems far from daily life.

J.D. Scholten | Opinion contributor

As a fifth-generation Iowan with deep ancestral roots in Iowa’s 4th Congressional District, it’s always been difficult for me to hear from outsiders, “How the heck does Steve King keep getting re-elected in spite of his vile and extremist views?”

My father grew up in Larchwood, a small town at the very northwest corner of Iowa where Democrats struggle to break 25% of the vote. My mother is from a farm outside of Lake Mills, the very northeast part of the district. I grew up and currently live in Sioux City, the largest city in the district. This district is who I am, full of hard-working, kind-hearted folks. And I know that Rep. Steve King does not speak for me and many of my fellow constituents.

It wasn’t always this way. In 1982, 80% of what's now the district was represented by my two political heroes, Berkley Bedell and Tom Harkin, two populist Democrats who were the models for my campaign. My philosophy was to get out there to the people of our district, prove that we were trustworthy, prove that we would fight for them, and that would earn us their support regardless of their voting history.

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Putting 24,000 miles on “Sioux City Sue,” our Winnebago RV, sleeping in Wal-Mart parking lots more than my own house, that style of campaign meant we were almost able to shock the pundits and pull off the upset in a district where Rep. King had won his last two races by 23 points.

Our style of campaign brought us to within 1 percentage point of King in a poll a week before the election. We proved that if you show up, Democrats can compete anywhere, including a far-flung district that is 49 percent rural. We outperformed the Democratic candidate for governor by 17 percentage points as that campaign focused on urban and suburban Iowa.

In the end, we fell 3 points short. That was even as the Washington Post reported that King took a side trip to meet with an Austrian Neo-Nazi-aligned group while on a Holocaust trip, a gunman killed 11 at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, and the Weekly Standard reported that King referred to immigrants as "dirt" at a campaign event Nov. 5.

So why does Steve King get re-elected? The best I can sum it up is that it’s a numbers game, combined with the way the media works in small towns and the increasingly urban-centric Democratic Party leaving districts like this one behind.

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In the 4th district, Republicans (191,540) have a registration advantage of more than 70,000 over Democrats (121,079). Gone are the days when I was growing up that people voted more on the person than the party. In those days it was Republicans voting for Democratic Senator Harkin and Democrats voting for Republican Senator Charles Grassley. We are now very polarized and partisan. That allows folks to vote for candidates with that “R” by their name regardless of what they say or do.

The district contains 39 counties which cover seven media markets. With television the easiest way to communicate with constituents, it’s extremely difficult to get your message across in every market.

And in our newspapers, Rep. King doesn’t create the same headlines that he does nationally. Some of the national headlines break through. But for the most part, if you are a farmer on your combine listening to talk radio and getting reports about record low soybean prices, your congressman meeting with Neo-Nazis or tweeting in support of a Toronto mayoral candidate who is a white nationalist just seems far away from day-to-day life.

The lack of interest and investment in rural Iowa by the Democratic Party has also caused weak infrastructure to hold our representative accountable. When I launched my campaign in summer of 2017, only seven of the 24 state representatives from the district were Democrats and only two of the 12 state senators were Democrats. There’s not a large bench of Democrats in the district.

Steve King is not invincible. Change will come.

In Iowa, we’re that “other” district. If Iowa wasn’t the first state in the nation to hold the presidential caucus, this race would have most likely been abandoned and written off for dead. But I thought the people of the 4th district deserved a viable alternative.

Is Steve King invincible? Absolutely not. We ran a campaign that I am damn proud of. We did a lot of things right. We went from nothing to within 3 points earning votes all along the way from Republicans, independents and Democrats who felt that after 16 years of his failed leadership, it was time for change.

Rural Iowans are struggling with a depressed farm economy, skyrocketing health care costs and continued depopulation as young folks move to more thriving economies. I’m convinced that if we continue listening to their voices, we can eventually dethrone Steve King.

JD Scholten was the Democratic candidate for the House in Iowa's 4th Congressional District. Follow him on Twitter: @Scholten4Iowa