Democrat Josh Turek defeated Republican Rep.Ashley Hinson to take Iowa’s open Senate seat, NBC News projects, a critical flip for his party in the fight for the majority.Turek, a state representative who won a contested primary earlier this year with the tacit backing of Democratic leaders in Washington, effectively tied Hinson to President Donald Trump and a Republican agenda in Washington that proved unpopular with voters in Iowa.Turek hammered Hinson on her repeated votes backing Trump’s trade war, which has hurt Iowa producers and consumers, and the war with Iran, which has contributed to rising prices for gas, diesel fuel and products that are transported into and around the state.The victory could not have come at a more opportune moment for Democrats.
To wrest control of the Senate from Republicans, they needed a net gain of at least four seats.Democrats had not won a Senate seat in Iowa in nearly two decades.Rep.
Ashley Hinson.Kamil Krzaczynski / AFP via GettyHinson leaned heavily on her record over three terms in the House and Iowa’s Republican tilt, but she could not overcome Trump’s sagging approval ratings and voter frustrations about the cost of living.As was the case across the country, Trump and his agenda played an outsize role in the Iowa race.Hinson was forced to perform a high-wire act in which she simultaneously courted the president’s MAGA base and tried to find ways to distance herself from Trump.In September, after the last of her seven votes against efforts to end the war, Hinson announced that she believed the conflict should come to an end.
That positioned her closer to the sentiments of Iowans but gave Turek the opening he needed to call her a flip-flopper.On Oct.21, the same day Trump held a rally in Sioux City to bolster Hinson and other Republican candidates in Iowa, Hinson told “NBC Nightly News” anchor Tom Llamas that she was not disappointed in Trump.
But despite a voting record in lockstep with his priorities, she ...