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Iowa Farmers Fed Up with High Diesel Costs Call Out Hinson for Voting 7x to Continue Iran

Iowa Farmers Fed Up with High Diesel Costs Call Out Hinson for Voting 7x to Continue Iran

In This Week’s Edition of the Ashley Accountability Alert, Iowa Farmers Turned on Hinson for Jacking Up Diesel Costs, an Ethics Complaint Against Hinson Consumed Headlines, and Hinson Dodged Questions from Press as Her Senate Campaign Tanks

DES MOINES – This week, Ashley Hinson continued facing heat from Iowa farmers and local leaders from across the state who continued calling her out for voting seven times to continue the war in Iran, which has sent gas and diesel prices to record-highs.

In just the past week, farmers have been warning that diesel fuel costs at harvest season are reaching “critical levels,” “stress[ing] operations,” “raising concerns,” and “accelerating the economic and mental stress farmers are feeling.”

Meanwhile, Hinson and her husband blanketed headlines after an ethics complaint was filed calling for an investigation into whether Hinson violated House Ethics rules by letting her shadow lobbyist husband arrange meetings with her and the entire Iowa delegation.

It was the start of yet another terrible week for Ashley Hinson…

  • Then, Hinson couldn’t escape headlines of her Senate campaign being “rocked” by an ethics complaint alleging she violated House Ethics rules by helping her shadow lobbyist husband gain access to the Iowa congressional delegation.
  • To round out the week, Hinson was desperately avoiding questions from local press across Iowa after multiple polls – including a new one from Fox News – show her losing the Senate race.
  • KTTC: “Hinson was not available for an interview with KTTC on Thursday.”
  • WHO: “Despite her team calling the news conference this morning, Hinson did not show up.”
  • KCRG: “TV9 asked Hinson’s team for an interview after the roundtable to ask about those Medicaid concerns. Her team declined the interview request.”
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See What Iowans Were Seeing and Reading This Week: 

KGLO: Local Democrats hold “Hinson’s Gain, Iowa’s Pain” press conference

  • Former state representative Sharon Steckman of Mason City says Hinson’s votes have hurt those in north-central Iowa.  “One of the biggest reasons we continue to struggle is because Ashley Hinson doesn’t care enough about us to fight for us in Washington DC. She’s busy increasing her net worth by 15 times higher. She’s doing this by pushing tax credits in her favor for her and her husband in Washington DC. If we don’t turn the page on Hinson soon we’re going to continue to feel the pain.”
  • Thompson says diesel prices are concerning to area farmers waiting to get into the fields.  “Last January I had the opportunity to fill my bulk fuel tanks with $2.11 diesel fuel. I just did the math, I paid the check yesterday. I have a big tank and I ordered a semi-load in of 7,000 gallons, and the 7,000 gallons came in at $5.39. So you got $2.11 in January, $5.39…just now, Representative Hinson says she’s against the war. Now is that a political decision to make? Perhaps. Maybe she’s had a change of heart, I don’t know, but we need to end this war. We need an end to tariffs.”
  • Chris Peterson farms near Clear Lake. He says things aren’t good in rural America.  “The tariffs. The oil prices. The high diesel and gas prices. High input costs. Hinson and the Republicans have done it to the farmers. I’d be very careful if I was them who I voted for this time around. Think it out guys. Enough is enough. Let’s vote them out.”

Raw Story: Key midterm Republican rocked by ethics complaint as she slips behind Dem in polling

  • Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-IA) faces an ethics complaint over her husband’s role at an insurance lobbying group, as a new poll showed her trailing her Democratic Senate rival.
  • The complaint relies on an Aug. 27 report by NOTUS (now the Washington Sun), which found that Hinson’s husband, longtime insurance executive Matt Arenholz, chaired the government affairs committee of the Independent Insurance Agents of Iowa.
  • Between 2019 and 2025, Hinson and her affiliated committees took $67,500 from the political action committee of the national independent agents group and another $67,500 from the Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers PAC, according to the complaint.
  • “These facts raise serious questions about whether Representative Hinson’s official actions were, or reasonably appeared to be, influenced by her spouse’s financial relationship and/or official position with a regulated industry and lobbying group,” Lemek wrote.

KCCI:

  • Reporter: “An ethics complaint has been filed in the U.S. House against Ashley Hinson. […] The complaint alleges Hinson used her office to benefit her husband’s business interest.”
  • Reporter: “Hinson’s husband, Matt Arenholz, is the government affairs chair for the Independent Insurance Agents of Iowa. The complaint alleges that Hinson accepted more than $67,000 in campaign donations from the organization’s PAC between 2019 and 2025. Defend the Vote says that this potentially violates the House Code of Official Conduct. The organization requested that an investigation be opened.”  

Iowa Starting Line: Complaint: Ashley Hinson and her husband blurred ethics lines

  • As a US Senate candidate, Ashley Hinson has said she’d fight the special interests. But a new ethics complaint and her own financial disclosures complicate that pitch.
  • A complaint filed with the House Office of Congressional Conduct this month asks investigators to examine whether Hinson used her office to benefit her husband, Matt Arenholz, and the insurance trade group where he held a leadership role.
  • The complaint draws on NOTUS reporting from late August, which found Arenholz chaired the government affairs committee for the Iowa branch of the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America, a role not previously disclosed on Hinson’s financial forms. In the group’s own magazine, CEO Tom O’Meara credited Arenholz with arranging a meeting with all four Iowa House members in one room, and separately recalled bragging that his chapter met with the state’s full six-member delegation in a single trip.

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