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                            How GOP Senate candidate Ashley Hinson is navigating a tricky electoral roadmap in the Hawkeye state.                         
                                        
                
    
        



                        


        
    
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    WATERLOO, Iowa—Iowa voted to make Donald Trump president three elections in a row—most recently by more than 13 points—but the incumbent Republican president has become unpopular in this populist state, posing a real dilemma for Republicans on the ballot in November.

GOP U.S. Senate candidate Ashley Hinson, who is locked in a tight race with Democrat Josh Turek, has been engaged in a delicate dance trying to create some separation from Trump without alienating him or his base.

When Vice President J.D. Vance showed up to campaign in Council Bluffs on September 18, Hinson declined to appear with him—citing an unspecified scheduling conflict. But when Trump announced plans on September 28 for the creation of a $15 billion steel plant in Iowa, Hinson, a member of the U.S. House, still joined the rest of the Iowa congressional delegation for the announcement in the White House. Trump said in the Oval Office that Hinson would have “tremendous success as a senator,” and Hinson told Trump: “We’re working hard and appreciate your agenda.”

Attending the announcement of the steel plant was perhaps an easy call politically: Turek, her Democratic opponent, is a state legislator who voted in favor of $1.4 billion in tax incentives and subsidies for the proposed steel mill. But by the end of the week, Hinson was back to creating some distance between herself and Trump. At a press conference on affordability in Waterloo, Hinson said: “I’ve called for an immediate and successful end to the war in Iran, so that families can get some relief at the pump and the checkout line.”

In an interview with The Dispatch after that press conference, Hinson also broke with Trump on his use of $20 million in taxpayer dollars to fund TV ads praising his presidency. “I don’t think we should be doing that,” Hinson told The Dispatch. “It’s my job as a candidate to go out and talk about what we’ve done, and I think the president needs to do that too. But I don’t think that’s the proper use [of tax dollars].”

Tariffs, one of Trump’s most unpopular economic policies, seem like a more difficult issue for Hinson. Though Trump’s tariffs are an effective tax hike on Americans, Hinson was conspicuously silent about them at her press conference on affordability. Asked how tariffs during Trump’s second term and the ensuing trade war have hurt or helped Iowans, Hinson told The Dispatch: “Iowans understand there’s a long game here” to create “fair markets.” Hinson did directly criticize Trump’s trade policy back in August, when she disagreed with the president’s move to suspend some tariffs on beef, arguing that the move would hurt Iowa cattlemen. Hinson told The Dispatch that she generally favors Congress taking back the power it had given the president to unilaterally set tariffs. “I think Congress should take back a lot of things from the executive branch across the board” on “tariffs, appropriations, you name it,” Hinson told The Dispatch. “That’s true no matter who’s in the White House.”

But it remains an open question how much daylight there really is between Hinson and Trump on the Iran war and trade policy. She’s not sponsoring legislation to restore Congress’ authority on trade. And in September, Hinson did not join two fellow Iowa House Republicans, Zach Nunn and Mariannette Miller-Meeks, who voted for a war-powers resolution attempting to halt the president’s ability to carry out military operations against Iran. That makes her call for an “immediate and successful” end to the Iran war more of an aspiration than a policy. Asked whether she thought the president needed to take more decisive military action or better diplomacy to achieve that objective, Hinson told The Dispatch: “We should do whatever it takes. … I trust our U.S. military to get that objective done. The president needs to bring it to an immediate and successful end.”

When The Dispatch asked Hinson what the best things about Trump’s second term have been, she said: “We are changing the size and scope of government for the better” and that Trump is “the only one who’s had the courage in working with Congress to make sure we’re actually getting that done—getting rid of this waste, fraud, and abuse.” That’s a pretty thin and vague record to run on. While the size of the federal workforce has been cut in Trump’s second term, overall federal spending continues to grow, and the national debt just surpassed $40 trillion. 

With Trump in the White House, Hinson also seems poorly positioned to make the strongest arguments against Democratic control of the Senate. Asked to identify the biggest downsides of a Democratic Senate over the next two to six years—an invitation to discuss the risks of unchecked Democratic government two years from now—Hinson stuck to her Iowa- and Turek-specific talking points. She hit her opponent for missing an Iowa farm bill vote before saying: “When you talk about his support or lack of support for agriculture, he supported a policy that would allow fake meat to be sold in schools. We have lots of hogs, and hogs outnumber people at 8 to 1 in this state. I think that’s pretty tone deaf.” Hinson also criticized Turek for opposing a federal bill she introduced titled the Save Our Bacon Act, designed primarily to overturn California regulations on livestock or meat imported from states like Iowa. She also argued that Turek’s support for raising corporate tax rates would hit Iowa farmers. 

Asked at the press conference in Waterloo last Thursday if she would campaign with Trump himself in Iowa, Hinson didn’t give a direct answer. “He’s going to be all over the country campaigning,” Hinson replied. “Again, what I want to talk about with the president’s agenda is what we’ve done to help working families.”

Hinson’s wariness of Trump and Vance on the campaign trail can be explained with a look at the most recent polls showing Trump underwater with likely voters in Iowa. While a New York Times/Siena College poll conducted September 22 to October 1 found that likely voters in Iowa disapprove of Trump’s job performance 58 percent to 40 percent, the same poll also found Hinson ahead of Turek by a point—48 percent to 47 percent—and Iowa voters statewide preferring GOP congressional candidates 48 percent to 44 percent.

With polling like that, it’s little wonder that Hinson is emphasizing bipartisan legislation she supports and is airing TV ads touting the support of Democratic voters. “I think most politicians have lost their damn minds. They’re all red team, blue team, pick a side, hate the other one,” says a registered Democrat named Doug in Hinson’s latest TV ad. “I think it’s a bunch of crap. I’ve been a Democrat my entire life, and I’m supporting Ashley Hinson. She’s honest. She listens, and she’ll work with anyone to get things done.”        

    
            John McCormack is a senior editor at The Dispatch and is based in Washington, D.C. Prior to joining the company in 2023, he was Washington correspondent at National Review and a senior writer at The Weekly Standard. When John is not reporting on politics and policy, he is probably enjoying life with his wife and daughters in northern Virginia or having fun visiting family in Wisconsin.
        
        






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