JEFFERSON, Iowa — When Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson announced last year that she would run for the Senate, she promised to be President Donald Trump’s strongest ally in the chamber if she won.
Now Hinson is in danger of losing to Democratic state Rep. Josh Turek in a state that Trump carried three times — and she is taking a more nuanced stance ahead of Election Day as some of the president’s supporters have grown disillusioned with him.
Hinson spoke at Trump’s rally in Iowa last week, and she has featured Trump in her ads. But she has also gone further than any other Republican running for the Senate in a red state this year to make clear that she will stand up to Trump, pledging to be “a thorn in his side if he’s wrong for our state.”
In an interview, Hinson, 43, ticked off examples of times that she has broken with Trump, including her opposition to his plan last year to close the Department of Education and her relentless campaign against his move in August to lower tariffs on imported beef. She has also called on Trump to end the Iran war and criticized his decision this month to lift sanctions on Russian diesel.
“I’m not afraid to push back, and I think my record shows that I’m willing to work with anyone if they have a good idea,” Hinson said.
Hinson’s campaign has also spent millions of dollars in recent weeks running ads that emphasize her willingness to work with Democrats. It’s an unexpected strategy in Iowa, which Trump won by a 13-point margin in 2024 — but which is now a crucial battleground as Republicans fight to hold on to control of the Senate.
In a debate this month, Hinson even said she could work with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) if Democrats retake the Senate.
No Democrat has won a Senate race in Iowa since 2008, but Turek has a slight lead, according to a Washington Post average of seven high-quality polls in the state conducted since mid-September. Turek said Hinson is only pretending to care about working with Democrats because she is at risk of losing.
“She’s masquerading because she ended up seeing some poll numbers that didn’t look particularly good for her, but I don’t think that Iowans are buying it,” Turek said in an interview.
While Hinson has criticized the Iran war, Turek noted she has not joined House Democrats in voting to block Trump from ordering more strikes — unlike two other Iowa Republicans facing close races, Reps. Zach Nunn and Mariannette Miller-Meeks.
Hinson said she has opposed such resolutions because she does not want to tie Trump’s hands.
Democrats need to pick up four seats to retake the Senate, including at least two in states such Iowa that Trump won by double digits in 2024.
The state is saturated with ads, with more than $190 million set to air in the Senate race alone between Labor Day and Election Day, according to AdImpact, an ad-tracking firm. Democrats have an edge on the air, but Turek is predicting a close race, telling voters that it could come down to a few hundred votes.
Turek, 47, is running on his powerful personal story. Born with spina bifida, he won gold medals playing wheelchair basketball in the Paralympics. In 2022, he won a Republican-leaning state House seat by six votes after hauling himself up steps using his arms to knock on voters’ doors, dragging his wheelchair behind him.
Turek is running as an economic populist and said he has tried to avoid divisive cultural issues — although he has not dodged them entirely. His campaign debuted a new ad last week in which Turek says he opposes “males competing in female sports,” which an Iowa LBGTQ group condemned.
Like Hinson, Turek has emphasized his willingness to work with the opposing party, running ads boasting that he has voted with Republicans more than 700 times in the state legislature. He avoided criticizing Trump during two debates with Hinson even as he criticized her for supporting his polices, and he said he understood why many Iowans had voted for Trump.
“He accurately identified that the status quo was broken,” Turek said. “The status quo was not working for the average Iowan or the middle class. And he said, ‘I’m going to lower your gas prices, I’m going to lower your energy prices, I’m going to keep you out of forever wars.’ Everything has been the opposite.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) acknowledged while campaigning with Hinson in Sioux City, Iowa, that his party is facing “economic and political headwinds” in the midterms but predicted that Hinson would withstand them.
Republicans view Hinson as one of their strongest Senate candidates this year, according to two GOP strategists, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly. She has avoided the kind of controversies that have dogged some other Republicans who are facing tough races in red states.
In Kansas, for instance, Democrats have attacked Republican Sen. Roger Marshall for suing hundreds of patients over unpaid bills during his career as a physician. In Texas, Democratic state Rep. James Talarico has accused Ken Paxton, the Republican nominee and the state’s attorney general, of corruption stemming from his 2023 impeachment by the Texas House of Representatives on charges including bribery and abuse of public trust. (Paxton was acquitted by the state Senate.)
“Out of state with 3 million people or 5 million people or 10 million people, these are the best two candidates you could come up with?” Iowa Lt. Gov. Chris Cournoyer (R) said last week while campaigning with Hinson in Jefferson, Iowa, referring to races in other states. “They’re not sending their best. Well, in Iowa we are sending our best.”
Even David Loebsack, a former Democratic congressman from Iowa, said Hinson had run a strong campaign — though he also praised Turek for turning the race into a toss-up in a Republican-leaning state.
“Turek started behind the eight-ball, and he’s done a hell of a good job getting to where he is,” Loebsack said. “It’s just a matter of getting across the finish line.”
Turek has attacked Hinson aggressively in TV ads for her growing net worth while in office and for opposing the release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender. Hinson later voted to release the files, and she has accused Turek of lying about her record to try to win the race.
Steve Deace, a conservative radio host in Iowa, warned last month about the deteriorating political environment for Republicans in the state. But he said in an interview that he feels more optimistic after Trump’s rally last week, which he predicted would help turn out rural voters for Hinson and Zach Lahn, the Republican candidate for governor. Lahn has trailed the Democratic candidate, Rob Sand, in polling.
Still, Deace said Turek is a formidable candidate whom Republicans should not underestimate.
“Democrats did not nominate James Talarico [or Abdul] El-Sayed” in Iowa, Deace said, referring to the Democratic Senate candidates in Texas and Michigan. “They made the kind of strategic choices they used to make in other eras.”
Some Republican-leaning voters said Trump’s rally with Hinson did not make them more likely to support her.
Casey Jones, 33, who lives in Sioux City, said he voted for Trump in 2024 but is unhappy with the way his second term is going. He is concerned about Trump’s aggressive approach to immigration enforcement and disliked the president’s claim during his rally last week that he has the right to run for a third term, he said.
“It’s going to make me take a harder look at whoever he’s going to be endorsing,” Jones said.
Still, Jones said he does not plan to vote for Turek either. Instead, he said, he would likely vote for the third-party candidate, Thomas Laehn.
Asked about her message to disgruntled Trump voters, Hinson said she is reminding them that whoever wins her race will be in the Senate for six years — long after Trump has left office.
“We’re going to get through the next couple of months,” Hinson said. “It’s been a challenging time for our state and for our country. Do you want common-sense leadership on the other side of that to move our country forward with someone who has a proven record of working across the aisle?”
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