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Ashley Hinson Stumbles into the General Election With Rough First Week Post-Primary

Ashley Hinson Stumbles into the General Election With Rough First Week Post-Primary

A Terrible Week of Headlines Puts Hinson on the Backfoot in the General Election

DES MOINES – Ashley Hinson is entering the general election on her heels after a series of headlines rocked her Senate campaign through the week.

  • First, she was caught on a hot mic admitting the war in Iran is turning into a major “political liability” for her Senate campaign as gas, diesel, and fertilizer prices skyrocket.

The report comes as she campaigns on a stock trading ban when in reality she opposed a bipartisan discharge petition to bring a congressional stock trading and ownership ban to a vote.

Meanwhile, Iowa leaders in Davenport came together to launch Iowa Democrats’ statewide “Iowa Can’t Afford Ashley” tour, which will continue traveling across the state with events highlighting Hinson’s  corruption and her failing record of gutting Medicaid, raising costs, and hurting women and seniors.

See What Iowans We’re Seeing and Reading This Week: 

  • Reporter: “Iowa Democrats are protesting Representative Ashley Hinson in Davenport. ‘Iowa Can’t Afford Ashley’ is part of a statewide tour by Iowa Democrats. They’re going after her leadership and her voting record regarding the cost of living and gutting Medicaid.
  • State Representative Candidate Adam Peters: “We’re in a budget crisis that we’ve just kicked down the road. We have water quality issues that are plaguing the entire state, we have hospitals closing. We have people that are hungry.”
  • Reporter: “This is the first stop on Iowa Democrats’ statewide tour going after Representative Hinson.”
  • Iowa Democrats are already responding to Hinson’s nomination, launching a statewide tour called “Iowa Can’t Afford Ashley.” Its first stop will be in Davenport on Thursday, June 4, at 1 p.m. at Centennial Park. Democratic leaders said Hinson has a “failing record of gutting Medicaid, raising costs, and hurting women and seniors.” 
  • The tour will stop in several Iowa towns over the coming weeks, with organizers saying they want “to remind Iowans why they can’t afford any more years of Ashley Hinson’s failed leadership.”
  • Iowa Rep. Ashley Hinson has not held a single town hall in 2026 despite repeated promises to have more such events.
  • Hinson, who represents Iowa’s 2nd District, participated in several town halls between 2024 and 2025, but appears to have stopped scheduling them after launching her U.S. Senate campaign last September.
  • Rep. Ashley Hinson, the likely GOP nominee in Iowa’s critical Senate race, said last week that the Iran war will become a “political liability” if it extends much longer, according to audio obtained by POLITICO.
  • However, she added: “I do hope we can get this done by the next couple of weeks. If it drags on beyond that, it’s a political liability for us too, because we’ve lost Iowa soldiers. I’ve been to four funerals since December, it’s awful.”
  • The war in Iran has become a particular concern for Iowans as prices for fertilizer and diesel fuel — both essential for food production — have soared amid the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. That, combined with Trump’s trade policies from earlier this year, has sent the state’s agriculture sector spiraling. Iowa has also experienced a personal toll from the conflict when six Army Reserve soldiers with the 103rd Sustainment Command based in Des Moines, Iowa, were killed on March 1 in an Iranian strike on a Kuwait facility.
  • Her remarks are a clear admission that Trump’s war is not helping Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections, and is contributing to his, as well as the party’s, flagging poll numbers. Trump endorsed Hinson last year, and repeated his support for her in a Truth Social post on Monday.
  • Iowa Republican Senate candidate Rep. Ashley Hinson privately acknowledged that the ongoing U.S. conflict with Iran could become a “political liability” if it stretches beyond the next few weeks, according to audio of a campaign event exchange obtained by CBS News.
  • “I do hope we can get this done by the next couple of weeks,” Hinson said in the recording. “If it drags on beyond that, it’s a political liability for us too. Because we’ve lost Iowa soldiers.”
  • Hinson cited the deaths of Iowa service members as the source of her concern.
  • “I’ve been to four funerals since December. It’s awful,” she said.
  • […] a closer look at Hinson’s federal financial disclosures and her recent votes in Congress, reveals a gap between her campaign rhetoric and her personal finances. While Hinson did divest from just publicly traded stocks, her family’s net worth quietly skyrocketed by up to 10 times since she was sworn into office in January 2021.
  • Because Hinson only divested from public equities, this massive private portfolio remained completely intact — propping up a family net worth that climbed from a maximum of $1.6 million before she took office to as much as $8 million by 2024.
  • While Hinson publicly claims that serving in Congress should be “a privilege, not an investment opportunity,” the legislative reforms she champions would not even touch her family’s primary financial asset.
  • Last December, Hinson refused to sign a House discharge petition that would have forced a floor vote on the End Congressional Stock Trading Act.

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