WASHINGTON - Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), a nine-term Congressman with a long history of inflammatory comments, was defeated on Tuesday by State Senator Randy Feenstra in Iowa's 4th district primary. The New York Times had called the race after 95% of the ballots were reported, with King trailing by a wide margin.
Republican House leader Kevin McCarthy announced last year that King "will not be serving on committees in this Congress," after he told a New York Times reporter that he wondered why the term "white supremacist" had become offensive.
The RJC endorsed Feenstra last month. "Rep. Steve King's record includes inflammatory rhetoric condoning white supremacists and antisemites. He has also met with and endorsed extremist foreign leaders," the organization said in a press release, emphasizing that the Republican Jewish Coalition "has not endorsed King, contributed to him, or hosted events with him in many years."
"Steve King does not represent the Republican Party and it's time for him to leave Congress," Matt Brooks, executive director of RJC, said on Tuesday night, as results indicated King's defeat. "We are happy that Randy Feenstra, a strong conservative and a friend of Israel, will be our party's candidate for Congress in Iowa's 4th district seat this year," he added.
"The RJC PAC endorsed Randy and raised over $40,000 for him because we believe in him. We expect him to win in November and we look forward to welcoming Randy to Washington, DC, next January," Brooks' statement reads.
Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti Defamation League, sent a letter to McCarthy and to Speaker Nancy Pelosi last year, urging them to censure King, “in light of an extraordinarily disturbing series of involvements and statements that were antisemitic and offensive – not just to the Jewish community, but to all Americans.
“I originally wrote after it was revealed that Rep. King met in Austria with members of the Freedom Party [FPO], a far-right political party founded by a former Nazi SS officer, and sat for an interview with Unzensuriert, a Freedom Party-aligned publication,” the letter reads.
“It was particularly outrageous that Rep. King met with the FPO while on a Holocaust education trip sponsored by 'From the Depths,' an international non-profit group,” Greenblatt continued. “When questioned about his trip to Poland, Rep. King denigrated the Jewish history of the Holocaust, saying he sought out the 'Polish perspective' on the Holocaust and pointed to his takeaway of the 'Polish perspective' that they 'don’t know' whether Nazi or Soviet occupation of their country was worse.”