Ed Tibbetts, a longtime reporter and editor in the Quad-Cities, is the publisher of the Along the Mississippi newsletter, where this post first appeared. Find more of his work at edtibbetts.substack.com.

Suddenly, Ashley Hinson is trying to convince us she’s OK with Democrats; that she’s working with them to lower costs.

This is quite a change for Iowa’s wannabe senator. A year ago, she accused Democrats of trying to create a “crazy liberal dystopia.”

She said “radical left lunacy” had ruined states run by Democrats.

She accused Democrats of trying to push the U.S. “past the brink,” and she pledged her unending loyalty to Donald Trump, who regularly calls members of the Democratic Party “radical left dumocrats.”

“I will not let you down,” Hinson adoringly promised the president last year.

But now Hinson is trying to tell us she’s not so much MAGA as moderate; that she’s “working with people in both parties” to lower costs.

This is nonsense, of course. Her record is clear.

Hinson rejected a bipartisan compromise this year to lower health care costs in Iowa by voting against extending Obamacare tax credits. (Even Representative Zach Nunn of Iowa’s third district voted for it.)

She’s repeatedly rejected the Democrats’ attempts to rein in Trump’s disastrous war in Iran, most recently on September 15. And she voted in near lockstep with other Republicans to support the president’s tariffs, which will increase taxes by an average $820 per U.S. household in 2026 alone, according to the Tax Foundation.

It’s clear why Hinson is trying to sell herself as a bipartisan problem-solver rather than the Trump loyalist she portrayed herself to be a year ago. Trump’s approval ratings have plummeted, and as the Associated Press reported recently, many congressional Republicans are trying to salvage their campaigns by toning down their previous subservience to the president.

Instead, they’re trying to convince Americans it’s not Trump they really care about, but the cost of living that has risen so steadily on their watch.

This is a hard case to sell. Not only do Hinson’s past words belie the idea she’s reached across the aisle, but I doubt working families whose paychecks are being battered this year by Trump-sponsored inflation will believe Republicans are working to lower costs.

Look at what’s happened to inflation-adjusted earnings.

Real hourly earnings for households that make their incomes from work have shrunk by 0.3 percent over the past twelve months, according to a report last week by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Median household incomes did better in 2025, as inflation had moderated in 2024, going into Trump’s new term. This was especially true for households with gains from the stock market and retirement accounts. But then Trump’s tariffs began to take a bite out of American wallets. And this year, the war in Iran has pushed household costs even higher. A gallon of diesel in Iowa has risen to more than $6 and the average price of mid-grade gasoline in the state is $4.36 a gallon.

One conservative economist said this week that if you measured prices from the end of 2024 through last month, the Consumer Price Index had risen 6.1 percent.

No wonder American households are feeling the pinch.

It’s going to get worse, too. USA Today reported last week that health plans are projecting the highest medical cost trend in nearly two decades in 2027. This will undoubtedly hurt the tens of millions of Americans who get health insurance through their employers.

No taxes on tips? On overtime?

Sorry, sharply rising prices are swamping whatever small gains those policies gave to poor and middle-income Americans. Too bad they weren’t the average millionaire who got $100,000 from Trump’s tax cut, according to a report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Ashley Hinson supported all of this. That’s the truth she won’t tell you.

She won’t tell you increases in health insurance costs were so steep this year nearly a fifth of Iowans with policies on the Obamacare marketplace dropped their coverage. Meanwhile, average premiums in 2027 will rise between 5 percent and 17 percent, the Des Moines Register reported.

Hinson could have worked in a bipartisan manner to stop this, but she didn’t.

A year ago, she was warning about radical left crazies and voting to force healthcare costs higher.

She voted with Trump to support his price-raising tariffs, too. And she voted for Trump’s war. She even did it again on September 15. Representatives Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Nunn tried to save themselves and sided with Democrats to end the war and its disastrous effects on the economy. But not Hinson. She continues to side with Trump, not you.

I don’t know whether Hinson’s shell game will pay off for her. She’s in a close race with Democrat Josh Turek.

A year ago, Hinson clearly thought boasting of her subservience to Trump was enough to win a Senate seat. But the political winds have shifted. Polls are predicting a big year for the Democrats. So now Hinson is trying to convince Iowans she’s something she’s not: A bipartisan problem-solver trying to lower your costs. That’s not the truth. The truth is she’s a Trump loyalist, who faithfully helped him to drive those costs higher.

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Top image is cropped from a photo published on U.S. Representative Ashley Hinson’s official Facebook page on April 28, 2025.