Democrat Josh Turek defeated Republican Ashley Hinson to fill the open Iowa Senate seat, NBC News projects, a critical turning point for his party in the fight for the majority.
Turek, a state representative who won a contested primary this year with the tacit support of Democratic leaders in Washington, effectively linked Hinson to President Donald Trump and a Republican agenda in Washington that has proven unpopular with Iowa voters.
Turek criticized Hinson for his repeated votes in favor of Trump’s trade war, which has hurt Iowa producers and consumers, and the war with Iran, which has contributed to rising prices for gasoline, diesel fuel and goods transported in and around the state.
The victory could not have come at a more opportune time for Democrats. To wrest control of the Senate from the Republicans, they needed a net gain of at least four seats. Democrats hadn’t won a Senate seat in Iowa in nearly two decades.
Hinson leaned heavily on her record over three terms in the House and Iowa’s Republican leaning, but she couldn’t overcome Trump’s declining approval ratings and voters’ frustrations with the cost of living.
As was the case across the country, Trump and his agenda played an outsized role in the Iowa race. Hinson was forced to perform a high-wire act in which she simultaneously courted Trump’s MAGA base and attempted to find ways to distance herself from him.
In September, after the last of her seven votes against efforts to end the war, Hinson announced that she believed the conflict should end. That brought her closer to the feelings of Iowans, but gave Turek the opening he needed to call her a flip-flop.
On Oct. 21, the day Trump held a rally in Sioux City to support 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 result that aligned with her priorities, she argued that she had no difficulty working with — or standing up to — presidents of both parties.
“I work alongside the president. When he’s right for Iowa, I’ll tell him. When he’s wrong for Iowa, I’ll tell him,” she said. “But that doesn’t change the way I operate. I’ve always worked with both parties to get things done for Iowa.”
Hours before Trump’s arrival, she parted ways with her party leaders by condemning Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s controversial ad featuring his Democratic rival Amy Acton’s mother. In the ad for which Trump and Vice President JD Vance expressed support, Acton’s mother accuses her of being a liar. Acton and his brother claim they were kicked out of the family home after allegations that his mother’s husband sexually abused Acton.
“It’s terrible. I think about it as a mother, and you think about your children surviving childhood sexual abuse and having to relive that trauma on television,” she told ABC News. “I think it’s absolutely terrible and I think they should take the ad down.”
Democrats’ gamble on Turek’s narrative and his ability to pursue prosecutions against Trump and Hinson paid off. Born with spina bifida, which he attributes to his father’s exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam, Turek won gold medals in wheelchair basketball at the Summer Paralympics in 2016 and 2020. He then won election to the Iowa House of Representatives in 2022, becoming the first permanent member of the Legislature with a disability.
He faced a contentious primary against State Sen. Zach Wahls in June, but ultimately emerged victorious, 63% to 37%. Hinson had an easier path to her party’s nomination because Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Tim Scott of South Carolina endorsed her in the fall of 2025, helping her eliminate serious opponents. She won her primary with 75% of the vote in June.
Turek appeared to be the preferred candidate of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee — although none of them officially endorsed him — and Wahls used signs of their support to portray Turek as their beholden.
Hinson echoed this argument and also accused Turek of siding with his party’s far left. She criticized him for missing votes in the legislature earlier this year, while he was campaigning for his party’s nomination.
During the debates and on the campaign trail, she noted that President Joe Biden signed two of her bills — one on stillbirth prevention and one to create a federal study of rural veterans’ mental health. Rather than pick a fight with Trump, Hinson found ways to distance himself from the national party.
As one of the highest-profile matchups on the map, the Iowa race has drawn about $200 million between the two candidates’ committees and outside groups — more than the $167 million in annual appropriations for state agriculture and natural resources programs. Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds signed the law into law this summer.
The money continued to flow in largely because the race seemed so close. For months, polls have shown a contest within the margin of error, with some finding Hinson in the lead and others finding Turek in the lead.
Ultimately, Hinson couldn’t free herself from the Trump anchor Turek had tied her to.
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