Iowa Republicans Now Fleeing From Trump To Save Themselves In Midterm
President Donald Trump with Rep. Ashley Hinson, right, and her husband Matt Arenholz
Staring down an electoral wipeout, members of Iowa’s all-Republican congressional delegation are desperately trying to distance themselves from President Donald Trump.
On Monday, Rep. Ashley Hinson—the GOP nominee for Iowa’s open U.S. Senate seat—called for an “immediate end” to the war, which she blamed for the skyrocketing diesel prices that are hurting Iowa’s farmers.
“Iowans are being squeezed and shouldn’t have to foot the bill at the pump or the checkout line for the war in Iran,” Hinson wrote in a post on X, saying that aside from ending the war, Congress should suspend the gas tax, ban diesel exports, and create a “diesel relief program to help our farmers and truckers being crushed by the high costs.”
She added, “I am working every day to deliver bipartisan results for Iowans and I will work with anyone who is ready to tackle this challenge immediately.”
Of course, Hinson has voted four times against ending Trump’s war, including a vote just last week against a war powers resolution. So her attempt to paint herself as a bipartisan warrior who wants this war to end is face-saving bullshit, which her Democratic opponent Josh Turek has pointed out.
“[I]t’s easy to send a tweet but when you had the chance to vote to end this war, you chose not to. You voted seven times to continue it, including just last week,” Turek wrote in a post on X, addressing Hinson. “It’s time to actually end the forever wars and put Iowa and Iowans first.”
What’s more, Hinson calling for a relief program for farmers and truckers is the kind of government welfare she and other Republicans typically condemn.
Meanwhile, two of Hinson’s Republican House colleagues from Iowa—Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Zach Nunn—voted for the war powers resolution for the first time last week, a sign that they, too, believe the conflict is hindering their reelection bids. Nunn and Miller-Meeks are in toss-up races this fall, even though Trump carried both of their seats in 2024.
Like Hinson, both Miller-Meeks and Nunn called for the same policy changes to try to bring down the cost of fuel.
“We must immediately suspend the federal and state gas tax, sell American diesel to Americans first, and get relief to the farmers and truckers who cannot wait,” Miller-Meeks wrote in a post on X. “Then we fix the cause by drilling more here, selling E15 year-round, and ending the open-ended war. Last week I voted with Republicans and Democrats to do exactly that.”
“We have to bring down the price of diesel,” Nunn also wrote in a post on X. “My plan: Sell American energy to Americans first. Pass my Iowa-led biofuel bill = bring down gas 50 cents. Hold Big Oil accountable for gouging.”
The fact that Iowa Republicans are trying to distance themselves from Trump and his war is a telling sign of how badly things are going for the GOP six weeks out from Election Day.
A Marist poll released on Tuesday found Hinson trailing Turek in the Senate race by a stunning eight percentage points. The poll showed that a whopping 13 percent of Republican voters plan to defect and vote for Turek.
As for the lawmakers’ ideas to lower fuel prices, none of this would happen until after the election anyway. Republicans fled Washington, D.C., early to campaign.
On top of that, experts say their ideas are unlikely to work—and may even cause more harm than good.
“U.S. diesel prices are determined not by a U.S. supply and demand balance, but a global one,” gas prices expert Patrick De Haan wrote in a post on X. “Keeping distillates and diesel home does not change the world price that reference our prices. You can’t fence off a globally traded commodity by executive order and expect the global price to stop applying to it.”
De Haan added that an export ban could backfire, causing countries that purchase diesel fuel from the U.S. to go elsewhere permanently and actually cause refinery closures.
“The U.S. spent years becoming the world’s backstop for diesel supply. Telling every buyer from South America to Europe that American supply is politically conditional pushes them to diversify away from U.S. refineries and U.S. supplies, softening long-term demand for U.S. product and foregoing political leverage,” De Haan wrote. “This will be painful if this trend continues.”
At the end of the day, Hinson, Nunn, and Miller-Meeks are just as responsible as Trump for the war and its consequences. For months, all three Iowa lawmakers refused to use their constitutionally granted powers to stop the president. And now that the war has spiraled out of control, they’re throwing out bad ideas in a last-ditch effort to try to fix the damage they helped create.
Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos
- Democrats In Iowa, Alaska And Georgia Eye Governor's Mansions (And Just May Win) ›
- Republicans Signaling Fear That Midterm Will End Their House And Senate Majorities ›
- As Trump Losses Accelerate, Are Republicans Finally Backing Away From Him? ›
- Iowa Dogfight: Trump's Ruinous Policies Shaking Up Ruby-Red State ›
- Will Solid Red Iowa Oust Republicans Over Its Carcinogenic Water? ›
Start your day with National Memo Newsletter
Know first.
The opinions that matter. Delivered to your inbox every morning
