Joni Ernst became famous by gazing into a camera and boasting of castrating hogs on the Iowa farm where she grew up.



“So when I get to Washington, I’ll know how to cut pork,” she said. The campaign ad Squeal showed images of pigs, then came her punchline. “Washington is full of big spenders. Let’s make ‘em squeal.”

Even Democrats laughed. Late-night comedians spoofed it. Few, initially, took it seriously. This was back in March. Ernst was an obscure, one-term state senator scrambling in a primary against rival Republicans for the right to run for the US senate against a favoured Democrat.

Now, on the eve of Tuesday’s midterm election, Democrats don’t see the joke. Ernst, 44, appears poised to win Iowa’s senate race – and possibly to deliver a senate majority to the GOP.

Many progressives consider the self-described farm girl their worst nightmare: a Tea Party radical who wants to privatise social security, curb abortion rights, repeal Obamacare and abolish the Environmental Protection Agency. A corn belt Sarah Palin with shears – and momentum.

“I find her sort of scary,” said Joan Sparland, 56, an educator, after casting an early ballot with her husband and son in Des Moines. They voted for the Democrats’ senate candidate, Bruce Braley, but feared the worst. “I’m praying,” said Sparland.

At the weekend, Harry Reid, the senate majority leader, warned that an Ernst victory in the Hawkeye state, widely viewed as a bellwether, would doom the Democrats’ majority. “Think of what that would mean for our country.”

Opinion polls gave Ernst a small, consistent edge over Braley until the weekend when the Des Moines Register’s final poll gave her a 7 point lead, 51% to 44%, astonishing both sides. “This race looks like it’s decided,” said J Ann Selzer, who conduct the poll for the paper.

Two questions swirl: how did Ernst outflank her opponent? And what sort of change might she herald in Washington?

She grew up in humble circumstances in Red Oak, a remote outpost of Montgomery county, in south-western Iowa, amid corn fields and grain silos. She obtained a bachelor of science degree from Iowa State university and a master of public administration degree from Columbus college.

Her ambition and leadership first shone in the military. As a member of the army reserve and Iowa national guard she commended a company in Kuwait in 2003, running logistics convoys into southern Iraq. As a lieutenant colonel she now commands a national guard battalion. She was elected Montgomery county auditor in 2004 and won a state senate seat in 2011.

When the veteran US senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat, announced he would not run again, local GOP big hitters did not scent much opportunity. President Barack Obama had twice won Iowa, the last time by six points. Harkin’s anointed successor, Braley, an attorney and US representative, was expected to keep the seat blue.

There seemed little threat from the “clown-car’s worth” of little-known five Republican hopefuls who jostled for the GOP nomination.

And then, in March, came the 30-second hog castration ad, made for just $9000. It went viral. Some people recoiled, considering it bad taste. But Ernst’s name recognition soared.

She trounced her Republican rivals on the promise that as a “mother, soldier, conservative” she would fight abortion right and strive to tame big government, putting the Affordable Care Act, the EPA, the Clean Water Act, minimum wage and the department of education, among other things, in her sights.

She visited GOP donors across the US, building up a war chest to take on Braley – tens of millions of outside dollars are funding her and other Republican candidates – and won wide backing: establishment grandees like Mitt Romney; Sarah Palin and Tea Party groups; Rand Paul’s libertarian wing; the Koch brothers. “She got endorsements from across the spectrum,” said Tim Hagle, a University of Iowa political science professor.

Braley borrowed President Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign playbook and depicted his opponent as a right-wing extremist who would sacrifice the poor and middle class for billionaire tax breaks.

Democrat donors, notably Tom Steyer, filled Braley’s coffers, though he could not match Ernst’s wall-to-wall advertising. Michelle Obama and the Hillary Clinton stumped across the state.

On Saturday, it was Bill Clinton’s turn, hugging the candidate and addressing a 600-strong crowd in biting cold at a skating plaza in Des Moines. The former president rebutted Ernst’s pork-cutting vow, saying she did not know the difference between pork and people.

“I don’t want to hear minimum wage workers squeal. I don’t want to hear middle-class and working families squeal. I don’t want to hear college students squeal. I don’t want to hear seniors squeal.” It was a smarter riposte than Braley had managed, and the crowd applauded. But some confided it felt like a lost cause.

Ernst appeared unstoppable. She has visited each of Iowa’s 99 counties, tapping unease about the economy, Obama and national security. “Honk if you think Washington is broken!” says a sign on her campaign bus. She has deployed folksy charm in mostly small, intimate gatherings - something Iowans expect of candidates.

“The best way to inoculate against attack (Democratic) ads is to go out and meet people and that’s what she’s done,” said Craig Robinson, an Iowa Republican analyst and blogger.

According to The Des Moines Register poll, 48% of Iowans think she takes extreme positions, versus 33% for Braley, yet she trumps him, 51% versus 37%, in “better reflecting Iowa values”.

Her likeability, in other words, neutralised concerns about being too radical or beholden to outside interests, such as the Koch brothers.

“She’s a nut job but they’ve done a good job of marketing her as the girl next door. Ice cream and apple pie,” lamented Keith Nichols, 57, a veteran Democratic activist.

Michael Brickman, the Iowa GOP’s communications director, saw it differently. Democrats had tried and failed to smear an inspirational candidate, he said. “People see through it. It rings hollow.”

The Republican “victory center” in Des Moines, a hive of canvassers and phone banks, buzzed on caffeine, cookies and optimism. “I felt I had to step up and do my part,” said Carol Askren, 59, a volunteer who last campaigned in 2000 for Steve Forbes.

Braley, 56, a four-term congressman, alienated some crucial independents with several gaffes, notably a dismissive remark about the state’s venerable and popular US senator, Chuck Grassley, which many interpreted as a slight on farmers. Some analysts also questioned the decision to not use Obama to rally core Democratic voters.

Ernst, in contrast, has run a disciplined campaign which electrified the GOP base. People come early to rallies and stay till the end in hope of a hug or handshake. Many say they feel they “know Joni”.

The irony is that she is vague on many issues. The Tea Party rhetoric of her primary campaign has softened. Ernst no longer calls Obama a “dictator” or calls for his impeachment, or accuses the UN of plotting against Iowa farmers. She says privatising social security should merely be “an option” for young people. She still supports a “personhood” amendment for fetuses but urges “consensus” on reproductive rights, hinting at flexibility.

Those mixed signals and a short legislative record put a question mark over her views, said Hagle, the professor. “It’s not entirely clear. We really don’t know how radical she is.”

Robinson, the Republican analyst, called her a centrist, albeit in a party that has shifted right. “Sarah Palin endorsed her but that doesn’t mean she’s Sarah Palin.” He called Ernst pragmatic in the Marco Rubio mould, rather than a Ted Cruz-style rabble rouser.

If the former hog cutter prevails on Tuesday, and gains the advantage of incumbency, America will likely have plenty opportunity to know her, said Robinson. “She could be around for an awfully long time. She’s 44. She could serve three terms and still be in her prime years.”