Ashley Hinson's Senate rollout: Short-term success, long-term risks

A show of insider force

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It’s been a wildly successful week for U.S. Representative Ashley Hinson.

Three days after U.S. Senator Joni Ernst confirmed she won’t seek re-election, the three-term member of Congress all but wrapped up the Republican nomination for Iowa’s Senate seat. President Donald Trump’s “Complete and Total Endorsement” shut the door on any realistic chance Hinson could lose the June 2026 primary.

But Hinson’s embrace of the Washington establishment could alienate a segment of Republicans she will need after the primary. And her slavish allegiance to Trump could become a liability for the likely nominee in the general election campaign.

A SHOW OF INSIDER FORCE

Hinson has long been a darling of GOP insiders. After announcing her first campaign for Congress in 2019, the former television reporter and anchor gained early support from top Iowa Republicans and a nod from the National Republican Campaign Committee. The establishment preferred her candidacy to a comeback bid by former U.S. Representative Rod Blum.

As a brand-new member of Congress, Hinson landed a seat on the powerful House Appropriations Committee. Late last year, GOP colleagues saw her as a contender for a House leadership position. (She did not seek that role.)

Hinson’s been preparing to run for Senate for a long time. For months, politicos in Iowa and in Washington have viewed her as the obvious replacement candidate, if Ernst changed her mind about seeking re-election in 2026.

So it was no surprise that Hinson rushed to announce her candidacy on Tuesday, September 2, only a few hours after Ernst made her retirement plans official. She made the big reveal on Simon Conway’s drive time WHO Radio show. Within minutes, her campaign began rolling out endorsements: seven press releases over a little more than an hour. Most of the supporters were members of Congress from other states. Iowa House Majority Leader Bobby Kaufmann, a possible future Congressional candidate in southeast Iowa, declared, “Her conservative principles are beyond question, and her loyalty to President Trump’s America First vision is unshakable. She will be the conservative backbone of the Senate and a driving force behind more big wins for the American people.”

In a Wednesday morning news release, Hinson’s campaign boasted of “immediate praise and support from top America First Republicans.” Aside from Kaufmann, everyone listed already serves in Congress: Senators Jim Banks (Indiana), Katie Britt (Alabama), Markwayne Mullin (Oklahoma), and Tom Cotton (Arkansas), House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota, Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, and Representative Zach Nunn (IA-03).

Some of these names would be virtually unknown to Iowa voters. Who cares what Banks or Emmer or Mullin think? The blitz was directed at Republican insiders, not the public. The message to other would-be contenders: don’t even think about this race, because it’s a lock for Hinson. The campaign unveiled endorsements from several Iowa legislators on Thursday, then moved higher up the food chain.

First thing Friday morning, statements of support appeared from Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina (the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee), and the Senate Leadership Fund (a top outside spender on behalf of Senate Republicans). Subtext: We will spend heavily, if necessary, to ensure our preferred candidate wins the nomination.

The biggest gun came out around dinnertime on Friday, posting in his unique style.

So mission accomplished for Hinson. Through relentless praise and demonstrations of loyalty, she was able to get the president to overlook the fact that she called for certifying the 2020 electoral vote count and didn’t endorse Trump’s 2024 campaign until after the Iowa caucuses.

A truism of politics is that endorsements don’t matter. The exception is Donald Trump in today’s GOP. He has rarely backed a losing horse in a primary.

That doesn’t mean there’s no downside to how Hinson played her hand this past week. She will have at least one MAGA opponent in the 2026 primary, and she’s given him plenty of fodder.

“IOWA DOESN’T NEED ANOTHER ESTABLISHMENT-PICKED, UNIPARTY REPUBLICAN”

Trump’s “Complete and Total Endorsement” of Hinson must have been a bitter pill for former State Senator Jim Carlin. While serving in the legislature, he promoted Trump’s 2020 election lies on the Iowa Senate floor, attended Mike Lindell’s symposium about so-called election fraud, and co-signed a letter in September 2021 (!) demanding that certain states “decertify” their electors.

When Carlin announced his latest U.S. Senate campaign in June, he went after the incumbent: “Joni Ernst said she would go to D.C. and make them squeal […] After a decade, it’s clear it was a clever campaign commercial, not conviction. Rather than making them squeal, Joni has joined The Swamp.”

It won’t be hard to craft a similar message about the new front-runner.

I mean, look at this news release from September 3, the day after Hinson’s campaign launch.

Marion, IA –– Ashley Hinson today announced a core team of operatives with proven experience winning tough races who will lead her campaign for the United States Senate and keep Iowa red.

Ashley for Iowa Senior Team:

Austin Chambers — General Consultant
Sophie Seid — Senior Advisor and Chief of Staff
Tony Fabrizio — Pollster
Addie Lavis — Campaign Director
Todd Harris — Media
Tim Saler — Data and Analytics
Ryan Smith — Direct Mail
Abe Adams — Digital
Dave Abrams — Communications Advisor
Jacob Hawkins — Digital Advisor
Nicole Schmitt — Finance Director
Bryson Painter — Political Director
Anna Duncan — National Fundraising
Karrie Cohen, Kelsey Nilsen, Jennifer Jones — DC Fundraising

That’s four—count ’em, four—operatives who will focus on fundraising outside the state of Iowa. Three are tasked with “DC Fundraising.” That’s prime Swamp habitat.

Hinson will do a 99-county tour, and she will be able to outspend the competition 20 to 1 in the primary. But no matter how many times she says “Iowa” in a 30-second news clip, her campaign will be largely funded by people from elsewhere.

Speaking of which, the general consultant Chambers works for Something Else* Strategies. That firm has previously produced ads for Hinson, Governor Kim Reynolds, and Ernst—including her famous debut ad “Squeal.” I got a kick out of this description, from the company’s “Quick Propaganda” page:

At Something Else*, we’re good at telling stories. All kinds of stories. Many true, some maybe a little tall. We develop creative that fits you, not the other way around. We can be serious, tough, light-hearted, or make you cry. Whatever it takes to connect and win. Simple as that.

It doesn’t scream authenticity.

Carlin is mostly self-funding his low-budget campaign. His website states, “Jim Carlin isn’t running to join the Washington club, he’s running to challenge it. As an Army veteran, attorney, and proven conservative legislator, Jim has a record of taking on tough fights.” He began fleshing out the case against Hinson in a Facebook post published on September 2, as she was about to go on the air with Simon Conway.

After thanking Ernst for her service, Carlin said,

But let’s be clear: this is a critical moment, and Iowa doesn’t need another establishment-picked, uniparty Republican. The same establishment that orchestrated this moment will soon push another handpicked candidate who pretends to care about us and pretends to support President Trump, but isn’t truly on our side. These insiders got us into this mess. Iowa demands a true conservative fighter who puts America first, Iowans first, and fully backs President Trump’s bold agenda to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.

Carlin started his own 99-county tour months ago and has been doing several public or media appearances a week. He can’t match Hinson in high-powered endorsements, but some state legislators who are favorites with the MAGA crowd and social conservatives are backing his campaign, including State Senators Sandy Salmon, Kevin Alons, and Doug Campbell, and State Representative Samantha Fett (a prominent member of Moms for Liberty). Salmon and Campbell represent parts of Hinson’s current U.S. House district.

All the lawmakers backing Carlin have occasionally stood up to their own party’s leaders, particularly when trying to block Summit Carbon Solutions from using eminent domain to build a CO2 pipeline across Iowa. Hinson has generally avoided public comments about that controversy. In May of this year, she became a co-chair for the Congressional Biofuels Caucus. The biofuels industry is a major lobbying force for the pipeline.

In statements endorsing Carlin, Campbell emphasized his understanding of the constitution and the GOP platform. Fett described his “faith and courage.” Alons said, “I trust that when faced with tough decisions, Jim will remain principled and find the right path forward.”

In contrast, Hinson’s voting record indicates she will not stray from what leadership wants. Having closely followed her career in the state legislature, I cannot think of a single time she voted against her party’s leaders during her four years in the Iowa House. (Please reach out if you know of any examples.)

She wasn’t a profile in courage, either—often staying out of the Iowa House chamber during important floor debates, ducking back in only to vote on bills or amendments.

Hinson has been a reliable vote for leadership through her four and a half years in Congress as well. Whether it’s voting for Speaker Kevin McCarthy on fifteen ballots or procedural votes to keep the Epstein files under wraps, she will fall in line.

To my knowledge, the only time Hinson parted ways with top U.S. House Republicans on a noteworthy bill was in 2022, when she voted for the Respect for Marriage Act prohibiting states from refusing to recognize same-sex or interracial marriages. I agreed with her stance on that issue, but that’s not where the Iowa GOP base is.

I would bet the farm against Carlin winning the Senate primary. That said, he gained about 26.5 percent of the vote against Senator Chuck Grassley in the 2022 primary, and I see no reason he couldn’t get 30 to 40 percent next June. Whatever his final vote tally, he can cause problems over the next nine months by centering issues where Hinson is out of step with the MAGA contingent. He may force the front-runner and outside groups to spend a lot of money before the primary.

Most of Carlin’s supporters will come home to support the nominee, but some may vote Libertarian or stay home in November, especially if U.S. Representative Randy Feenstra (IA-04) becomes the GOP candidate for governor. The structure of Iowa’s electorate will favor Republicans in the 2026 general election, but if the Senate race turns out to be close, Hinson will need the base to rally around her.

“LET’S NOT SEND FAKE CONSERVATIVES TO WASHINGTON”

A few words about the third Republican in the field: Joshua Smith, the former Libertarian who announced his own GOP bid for Senate last December, has bashed Hinson repeatedly on X/Twitter this week.

He criticized her for taking funding from the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC. He reminded followers that Hinson supported Liz Cheney for House Republican Conference chair in February 2021, after Cheney voted to impeach Trump. “Will anyone really fall for her trying to latch on to MAGA in 2026?” (That was a couple of days before Trump answered Smith’s question.)

Citing my own reporting from 2017, Smith wrongly claimed Hinson “wants to continue funding planned parenthood with your tax money. Let’s not send fake conservatives to Washington from the great state of Iowa.” She did claim to support access to non-abortion services at that time, but subsequently voted to take numerous funding streams away from Planned Parenthood: family planning services in 2017, sex education grants in 2019, and most recently all Medicaid payments as part of the budget reconciliation bill.

I’m skeptical Smith—who admitted in August, “I haven’t even campaigned yet”—will qualify for the primary ballot. In Iowa, U.S. Senate candidates need to file petitions by March 13, 2026, with at least 3,500 signatures from eligible voters, including at least 100 signatures from residents of at least nineteen counties. It’s a tall order for a candidate who doesn’t appear to have raised enough money to trigger Federal Election Commission reporting requirements.

Whether or not Smith ends up on the primary ballot, he can lob insults at Hinson and potentially hurt her standing with the libertarian wing of the GOP.

“I’LL BE PRESIDENT TRUMP’S STRONGEST ALLY”

Like many Republicans these days, Hinson effusively praises Trump in almost every public statement about almost any topic. From her September 2 news release: “I’ve stood shoulder to shoulder with President Trump to reverse the woke craziness and put working families first. In the Senate, I’ll be President Trump’s strongest ally and deliver the America First agenda.”

She returned to that talking point again and again in her media interviews last week, and at her kickoff event in West Des Moines on September 5.

That was a great strategy for convincing the president to endorse her Senate campaign. (“SHE WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN!”) How helpful that will be next November is an open question.

Trump is one of the least popular presidents in history. Not only is his approval rating underwater nationally, his “strongly disapprove” numbers are higher than ever.

Of course, the president is better-liked in Iowa (which he carried by 13 points last November) than he is nationally (he won the nationwide popular vote by about 1.5 points). But we have very little publicly available data on Trump’s approval rating in Iowa this year, because the Des Moines Register is no longer commissioning statewide polls.

Here’s one recent data point: in mid-August, Public Policy Polling found 50 percent of Iowa respondents had a favorable opinion of Trump, while 46 percent had an unfavorable opinion. Ernst fared much worse in that survey, commissioned by Democratic Senate candidate Zach Wahls’ campaign: just 37 percent favorable, 50 percent unfavorable. So those were decent numbers for Trump.

Civiqs polling has found Trump’s job approval numbers slightly underwater in Iowa this summer, lately averaging 46 percent approve/50 percent disapprove.

A lot can change in a year. This month’s bleak jobs report raised concerns that the U.S. is headed for a recession. Iowa’s economy is among the worst-performing in the country; our state’s gross domestic product was already shrinking in the first quarter of 2025, before Trump’s “Liberation Day.” Manufacturing layoffs continue, in some cases directly tied to Trump’s tariffs. Prices for food and many consumer goods are rising.

Hinson is on record praising Trump’s trade policy. She has repeatedly claimed the president is ushering in a “golden age.” She stands by the so-called “One Big, Beautiful Bill,” which she has tried to rebrand lately as the “working families tax cut bill.”

If economic conditions in Iowa continue to worsen, the campaign ads write themselves.

Any relevant comments are welcome in this thread.

P.S.—Hinson’s decision to run for Senate leaves Iowa’s second Congressional district without an incumbent. I’ll cover the field of potential candidates on the September 8 edition of “KHOI’s Capitol Week.”