Congressman incumbent, republican congressman steve king and joni ernst, the senator from iowa. Yeah. So congressman steve king, hes a nineterm incumbent from the Fourth District which is the northwestern corner of iowa and he has long been a very controversial member of congress. Hes got a history of making statements that border if not cross into pretty openly racist territory and he has a history of supporting White Nationalist candidates in europe and in canada and has long been a thorn in the side of the Republican Party. Hes never really had a tough election until recently. In 2018, he was actually dropped by the Republican Congressional Campaign committee. He was called a racist by their chairman and his corporate sponsors all pulled out. He won by just three points. Right after he won, he turned around and gave an interview to the New York Times where he defended White Nationalism and white supremacy. Following that interview, the House Republican caucus actually stripped him of all his committee assignments. Hes a man without any committee assignments. He used to be on the agriculture committee, very important for iowa, hes no longer on the agriculture committee. The Republican Party has side theyre done with him. They have generally coalesced around a primary challenger him, a guy named randy feenstra, a state senator, who is giving king the most competitive election hes ever had in his two decade political career. On the senate side, joni ernst, no real serious competitor on the republican side in the primary, correct . Shes more concerned i guess about the democrat challenge in iowa. Tell us about that. Yeah. So joni ernst, its her first term in the senate. She is going to be the republican nominee. Its a more crowded field on the democratic side. There are four major canneds running for the democratic nod, the National Campaign committee has endorsed a candidate, teresa greenfield, and theyve spent quite a lot of money between the Campaign Committee and then one of the major democratic super pacs in bolstering her candidacy in the primary. She still has to face three other candidates. Theres michael franken, a retired navy admiral, eddie murrow, a local businessman and a woman named kimberly graham, who is an attorney. The trick here with this particular primary is that the winner has to get over 35 if they want to win outright. If she doesnt, if greenfield who is widely accepted to be the front runner doesnt hit that 35 threshold then the top two candidates go to a nominating convention where it will be much more difficult to secure the nomination because it will be Party Activists deciding not the entire voting electorate. Are there any races out there, particularly on the house level, that youre looking at that could be surprises, those races im thinking of the joe crowley race, when he lost in the primary, the eric cantor of virginia when he lost, any of the potential for those in the house races across the country . Yeah. So i think the one that kind of fits in on that level is steny hoyer, who is the House Majority leader from marylands Fifth District is facing a primary challenge from a woman named Mckayla Wilkes and it does kind of fit into that vain of a young progressive woman of color challenging a pretty entrenched establishment figure. I dont think anyone would really call steny hoyer a moderate, but he is most certainly kind of the most establishment, oldschool of the democratic politicians like joe crawly. So there is upset potential there. What you have to remember is that after aoc kind of caught the whole world by surprise with her win over joe crawly. Right. Since that moment, all of these members have been on high alert for these kinds of challenges. The general feeling is that crawly really dropped the ball and none of these members nowadays are really going to make the kind of mistakes that he potentially made in 2018. Last question for you about mailin voting. A number of states, maryland being one of them, going to pretty much all mailin voting because of covid19. I think its going to be an interesting experiment. Theres no other way to put it. This is unprecedented level of mailin voting and it will be a stress test for the election systems we are joined next by maryland senator ben cardin to talk about the unrest in the United States and senator cardin, good morning. Wanted to ask you, first of all, what you thought of the president s announcements yesterday, his increasing use of the military in response to the unrest . I think the president just added to the heat of the frustration in this country. The president cleared a peaceful protest in order to do a photo on in front of a church. Its ridiculous. Using the federal military against our states, this is an abuse of power by the