Ernst says ‘never’ to presidential run

CEDAR RAPIDS - Sen. Joni Ernst appreciates the number of Republicans who have stepped forward to seek her party's presidential nomination, but she has no intentions of joining them - this year or ever.

'You're so sweet,” Ernst said when asked about presidential ambitions at the Cedar Rapids Daybreak Rotary Club Friday morning. 'No. No, no, no. I think I can do a lot of really good things in the Senate.”

The freshman senator, who won a five-way GOP primary and a tough general election race to win the first open-seat U.S. Senate race in Iowa in four decades, appreciates that people are willing to 'to step forward and go through that,” but has no plan to join them.

'People say ‘Never say never,'” Ernst said, 'but never.”

Neither is she saying who she would like to be the Republicans nominee.

'I'm staying on the sidelines,” Ernst said, but she is encouraged by the size of the field and the diversity of ideas being presented in the Iowa caucus campaign, but 'I would like to see that field narrowed at some point.”

She encouraged Iowans to 'Dig in, Democrat and Republican, dig in, find the one that suits your needs best and get out and caucus.”