Hello,

Well, it didn’t take long. Less than an hour after I was declared the Democratic nominee for Senate in Iowa, the attacks from Chuck Grassley began.

“The most liberal nominee in Iowa Senate history”
“Radical”
“Socialist”

Gotta love it!

Chuck Grassley doesn’t know what to say about me. He’s never faced an opponent like me before. I’m his political nightmare, so he’s just throwing cow pies at the wall and hoping something sticks.

Calling me “radical” is laughable when Chuck Grassley supports a complete ban on abortion and letting literally anyone buy an AR-15 without even a background check. But there’s one attack that I absolutely won’t take lying down, and that’s Chuck Grassley’s attacking me for serving our country for 36 years in the U.S. Navy.

Grassley is already trying to say that because I enlisted in the military at age 19, because my deployments meant that my family had to move from state-to-state and country-to-country… that I’m not an Iowan anymore.

Chuck Grassley wants to pretend that I wasn’t raised in rural, northwest Iowa. He ignores the enormous sacrifices that my family – my wife and my kids – made to allow me to serve in the Navy.

Grassley’s attacks denigrate every servicemember and every military family that has to pack up, change schools, say goodbye to friends, spend holidays away from each other, and be absent from life’s big events like weddings and the birth of a child.

And if Chuck Grassley thinks that I will stand silent while he says that every Iowan who puts on our country’s uniform stops being an Iowan… he’s delusional.

These are the kinds of attacks I’m going to be up against. Nasty stuff from Chuck Grassley, Mitch McConnell, and the Fox ‘Entertainment’ News propaganda network.

There’s one reason why: The GOP is scared. They’ve seen the polls, and they know that if we defeat Grassley and turn Iowa blue this November, Democrats are guaranteed to maintain our Senate majority.

In order to fight back, we need to raise another $100,000 before our TV ad buy deadline to keep our new ads on the air, but the only way we’ll hit our goal and send Grassley packing is if grassroots donors like you give right now:

Please, can I count on you to give $5 or more right now – every dollar you can afford – to help me defeat Chuck Grassley, turn Iowa blue, and protect our Democratic Senate majority?

These attacks against me are ridiculous, but we cannot let them go unanswered.

Thank you for being a crucial part of this phase of our campaign,

Mike Franken, U.S. Navy (ret.)