Judge not expecting cakewalk in U.S. Senate race

On just four hours of sleep, newly nominated Iowa Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Patty Judge kicked off her campaign for a seat in Washington, D.C., from Washington, Iowa, on Wednesday.

Judge, a former lieutenant governor and state agriculture secretary, won a four-way Democratic primary election Tuesday, setting up a challenge to six-term Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley.

She won 48 percent of the vote to 39 percent for State Sen. Rob Hogg and 7 percent each for Tom Fiegen and Bob Krause, according to unofficial results from the Iowa Secretary of State.

Judge was not surprised or discouraged by the low Democratic turnout, despite her race and Democratic primaries in the 1st and 3rd U.S. House districts. By comparison, 162,608 votes were cast in the five-way GOP Senate primary two years ago.

Judge anticipated a low-turnout primary and thinks Democrats will join her effort as well as the challenge of electing Hillary Clinton to the presidency.

'I think now we have clear direction,” she said Wednesday. 'We know who our nominee is. We know who the state Senate candidate is going to be. It's set now. That will allow us to very aggressively campaign and reach out to Democrats and get them energized.”

Despite their differences in primaries, 'Democrats always come together,” Judge said. 'We will come together again. Hillary Clinton will be our standards bearer. I will campaign hard and I have every reason to believe that we will have a united party and everything will come together for us.”

Grassley's willingness to tie himself to presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump will help unite Democrats, she added.

She's confident that her 'strong message of standing up for middle class Iowans will resonate” with voters.

'Challenging a 36-year incumbent is a heavy lift,” Judge said. 'When I got into this race, I didn't get into it with the idea that it would be a cakewalk.”