As a representative of the progressive wing of the Republican Party during the era of “prairie populism,” when the Midwest was a font of radicalism, Turner advocated for many reforms. In a 1912 address to the Republican State Convention, he defended the anti-trust law and called for direct election of U. S. senators, income and corporate taxes as more equitable than property taxes, and an end to corrupt leadership, saying, “We must cleanse our party of complacent plutocrats and corpulent freebooters, masquerading as Republicans.” Elected to the Governorship in 1931, he attacked lobbyists in his inaugural address and demanded fair congressional districts, measures to promote child welfare, and establishing a state conservation commission: