MARION – As the Linn-Mar High School marching band took to the football field in sweltering heat, Ashley Hinson pulled out her phone.
Practiced from years as a journalist and as a mom documenting concerts and school events, she focused her camera on her oldest son, Max, in the trumpet section.
She and her husband, Matt Arenholz, and their younger son, Jax, were attending more for the marching band than the football team, which lost 20-23 to Ankeny Centennial.
Hinson comes from a musical family. Her parents met at the Des Moines Symphony, where she also played for a few years. After she took up the violin at 7, they'd set a kitchen timer for 45 minutes each day to make sure she was practicing.
"And I could practice all at once, or in chunks, or,
you know, 10 minutes at a time, as long as I got that 45 minutes down to zero every single day," she said. "And so I think that discipline really helped me to manage my time really effectively."
More: Hinson, Turek clash on missed votes, stock trading in Senate debate
A week before the football game, Hinson stepped onstage at her annual BBQ Bash fundraiser to join the band in playing "Jolene" and "9 to 5" in tribute to the late Dolly Parton. She hadn't had a chance to practice with the group ahead of time. But years of playing – in the symphony, at her church, in a Jimmy Buffet cover band playing gigs around the Midwest – taught her to pick up a tune quickly.
Hinson didn't become a professional musician, as she was once planning. But her musical discipline, adaptability and unflappable journalistic demeanor have come in handy throughout her political career as a Republican member of the Iowa House, U.S. Congress and now a candidate for U.S. Senate, where she's developed a reputation for delivering a clear message – note perfect.
Now she's locked in a competitive race for Iowa's open U.S. Senate seat that analysts at the Cook Political Report and Sabato's Crystal Ball call a "toss-up." The contest will help determine which party controls the Senate and has become one of the most closely-watched races this year.
Republicans and Democrats are pouring millions of dollars into the race to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst. Polling shows Hinson neck and neck with Democratic state Rep. Josh Turek. Libertarian Thomas Laehn is also on the ballot.
Hinson, who got into the race promising to be President Donald Trump's top ally in the Senate, talks more these days about bipartisan accomplishments and her work to lower costs for Iowans.
Turek frequently attacks Hinson for her votes supporting Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which cut spending on Medicare and food assistance. He's criticized her for voting to continue the Iran war and her support for tariffs. On the campaign trail, he often paints Hinson as corrupt and out for herself at the expense of Iowans.
Hinson has a larger campaign war chest than Turek and benefits from Republicans' 180,000 voter registration advantage over Democrats. But polling shows majorities of voters have soured on Trump, many are struggling under high costs and Republicans are sounding alarms about races that were once thought safely theirs.
More: Iowa Democrats chip into GOP voter registration lead. Here's where:
"What I have learned, especially over the last five, six years that I've been out in Congress, is that you can only control what you can control, right?" Hinson said. "Everything else, you just have to be willing to let it go."
From the 'journalism bug' to the 'political bug'
When Ernst announced in September 2025 that she wouldn't run for a third Senate term, the handoff to Hinson was seamless.
Within hours, Hinson had launched her own campaign.
Within days, Hinson secured endorsements from top leaders in Iowa, Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Trump.
Hinson handily won her primary against former state Sen. Jim Carlin, who was already running when Ernst dropped out.
Hinson, 43, has been seen as a rising star in Iowa politics since she unseated Democratic U.S. Rep. Abby Finkenauer in 2020.
Two reelection campaigns cemented Hinson as a polished messenger and strong fundraiser – traits she's carried into the Senate race.
But before Hinson got the "political bug," she first caught the "journalism bug."
That was back at Valley High School in West Des Moines, when she joined the school's radio station, KWDM The Point. Her time there coincided with the divisive 2000 presidential election, and when Al Gore came to speak on campus, her high school principal made sure she got into the event to cover it.
"He got me into this rally with all the big guys," she said. "So you had all the network guys, and then here's me, this KWDM The Point journalist, basically. And all I had was like a little tape recorder, and I got to talk to Al Gore and Ted Kennedy.
"It kind of lit my fire just in terms of wanting to cover politics."
That took her to the University of Southern California, where she studied journalism, and then to KCRG in Cedar Rapids, where she was a reporter and anchor covering the floods of 2008 and the opening days of the Iowa Legislature.
"There's a lot of synergy between what I did as a reporter and anchor to what I do now," she said. "The pace is still there. You're asking questions, you're learning a lot about things quickly."
More: Josh Turek won Paralympic gold. Can he win Iowa's US Senate race?
But in Congress, Hinson considers herself a workhorse.
"You have people who have different motivations for wanting to be in front of the camera all the time. And then you have people who just want to get the work done," she said. "And I kind of consider myself one of those people. I spent my entire career on camera, and now I just want to go there and get things done and solve problems."
It's an assessment Arenholz echoed.
"I've never seen a person in my entire life work as hard as she does," he said.
President Trump's 'top ally' and someone who can reach 'across the aisle'
In a radio interview the day she launched her campaign, Hinson said, "I'm running to be President Trump's top ally in the United States Senate."
She's campaigned extensively on the tax cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, voted with Trump on tariffs and consistently voted against resolutions in Congress to curb the Iran war – even as two of her Iowa colleagues, U.S. Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Zach Nunn, voted in favor.
"My perspective on it hasn't changed. I don't want to see a long, like a war in Afghanistan where we’re there for a significant amount of time," she said Sept. 3. "This conflict, I think, is a little bit different because of the means of fighting. We don't have boots on the ground. I don't want to see boots on the ground, I can tell you that."
She pointed to the Trump administration's Aug. 31 deal with Venezuela on oil, saying, "that could have a multigenerational impact on the price of energy going forward."
"I want to get gas prices down, but I also think that there are bigger things at play here that I'm hopeful will work out better for our country in the long term," she said.
Trump put out a video on social media on Sept. 18 calling Hinson "a total winner" and saying "she will never let you down."
But Hinson has recently staked some distance from Trump.
She criticized his move to import more foreign beef as Iowa's agriculture industry struggles, saying, "the president's approach there was not the right idea."
And she did not join Vice President JD Vance on Sept. 18 for a rally in Council Bluffs – Turek's hometown. Her campaign said she had previously scheduled events. The campaign did not say what events those were.
Still, she stood alongside Trump in the Oval Office on Sept. 28 as he announced that a $15 billion steel plant would be built in Iowa. At the announcement, Trump promised to travel to Iowa to campaign for Hinson.
"We'll save you a good Iowa pork chop, sir," she responded.
In one of her campaign ads, Hinson sits in a movie theater and says, "It used to be that reaching across the aisle wasn't just okay, it was expected," as she hands a bucket of popcorn to the person in the next seat.
"Some people in Washington forgot that," she says in the ad. "I never have."
She says her proudest moment in Congress was helping pass the Sgt. Ketchum Rural Veterans Mental Health Act, which improved funding for veterans' mental health care and which Democratic President Joe Biden signed into law.
It's an area where she's drawn praise from supporters.
"I'm a veteran, so I'm very into the issues that she's brought up for veterans," said Larry Robertson, a West Des Moines Republican who attended Hinson's BBQ Bash. "Joni Ernst was obviously that way. She was actually a veteran herself. So, I see consistency there."
Hinson pointed to those bipartisan accomplishments in the first televised debate in the race, which aired Oct. 7 on Iowa PBS.
"I'll be President Trump's ally when it is important for Iowa," she said. "But I will push back on him. He knows this because I talked to him regularly on things that are wrong for our state. And that's true no matter who's in the White House."
Hinson doesn't agree with some in her party, including Trump, who have called for eliminating the Senate filibuster to pass Republican priorities such as the SAVE America Act.
"I like the filibuster because I think it's probably one of the last things that forces us to work together," she said. "And I'm really sad about where we're at, where it just seems like that's not happening."
The one exception for Hinson, who serves on the Appropriations Committee, is for budget bills.
"Honestly, as an appropriator, I think you should keep the filibuster on everything that's not appropriations based and get rid of it for the appropriations process," she said.
Democrats say Hinson's claims of bipartisanship are misleading.
Bridge Grades, a nonpartisan project that scores federal lawmakers on how often they legislate across party lines, gave Hinson an A grade as of Sept. 28, ranking her as the 70th most bipartisan member of Congress, the lowest score among Iowa's congressional delegation. In 2023, the Lugar Center ranked Hinson as the 142nd most bipartisan member of the House, below the rest of Iowa's delegation.
“No desperate, over-produced TV ads can change the fact that Ashley Hinson is the least bipartisan member of the Iowa congressional delegation and has repeatedly sold out Iowans to enrich herself and her donors,” Turek spokesperson Hannah Goss said in a statement.
'Minivan driving mom': Hinson emphasizes affordability
On the campaign trail, Hinson connects her priorities to her experiences as a "minivan driving mom."
"I'm a working parent," she said. "I know what it's like to write the check for daycare."
It's why she says she wants to pass policies that give more flexibility to families so they can get jobs, afford child care and support their families.
"I know there are many people who have crazy schedules because I’ve worked that, too," she told the Register on Sept. 3. "So, for me, one of my biggest priorities is trying to figure out how do we provide the most support for people who maybe have a weird shift, a weird schedule, so they can still have child care that's safe and accessible for them."
She often speaks about the tax cuts in Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act. That includes cutting taxes on tips, overtime pay and Social Security, as well as expanding the child tax credit.
"We want more families, and we want more people to choose to have children," she said. "We want it to be affordable for them to do that."
Turek has sought to paint Hinson as out of touch with Iowans' financial concerns by attacking her over her personal wealth, saying she's become "up to ten times more wealthy" since entering Congress.
Hinson's latest financial disclosure, filed in August, shows she holds assets worth between $2.3 million and $8.8 million. That's an increase from the assets she reported when first running for Congress in 2020, which were worth between $726,000 and $2.4 million.
"Frankly, it's offensive to me, because my husband and I have done everything the right way and tried to lead by example in that regard," she said. "In 2021, when I was sworn into Congress, we decided to sell all of our publicly traded stocks. I don't think members of Congress should trade stocks."
Hinson's assets include between $1 million and $5 million in privately held stock in High Street Insurance Partners, the result of the sale of Arenholz's insurance company. The remainder of the funds are invested in mutual funds, IRAs, 401(k)s and exchange traded funds. The disclosure does not list any individual public stocks.
Hinson called Turek's criticism "completely misplaced."
"My husband built a business before I was even in office – ever. It just happened that they sold it at that time," she said. "And guess what? We put it on our financial disclosure, because that's what we do. We're transparent. And I think that's important. So, I want the American dream for everybody. My husband and I have achieved that."
2:30 a.m. emails, nightly phone calls and 'Mom, we're out of snacks'
Hinson's first date with her husband epitomizes the doggedness her supporters praise from her time in Congress.
Although Arenholz grew up next to Hinson's grandparents and their families knew each other, she never got to know him until they were seated together at her cousin's wedding, when she'd moved back to Iowa after college.
They hit it off, but Hinson had to leave without getting his phone number.
"I got home that night and all I knew was his name and that he worked in insurance in Waterloo," she said. "And so I Googled him, and Monday morning I sent him an email at probably 2:30 in the morning when I got to work, and then we went on our first date the next Friday."
"She's a stalker," Arenholz chimed in.
"Please don't say that," Hinson said, laughing.
She said she never really had any doubt that it would work out.
"I knew," she said. "I left that reception and I was like, 'I think I love him already.' "
It could have been a different story if they'd had a chance to dance that night, Arenholz said.
"Things could have ended up differently if she'd seen my moves, which are not great," he laughed.
They recently celebrated their 18th wedding anniversary.
The two of them debrief every night – a tradition they've had since they started dating, when Arenholz lived in Waterloo and Hinson in Cedar Rapids.
"Anytime we're apart, we still talk every single night," he said.
As Hinson splits her time between Washington, D.C., and Marion, she still works to take care of family back home.
That includes stocking the pantry – and sometimes a midweek grocery order via Instacart, which she can do from Washington.
"Some weeks I'm better at that than others," she said. "And I'll get the midweek text from Max that's like, 'Mom, we're out of snacks. Please send snacks.' "
Arenholz says the family's schedule was hectic long before Hinson was elected to Congress.
"She was on TV for 10 years," he said. "And we didn't have a normal schedule then, either, because she got out of bed at 3 o'clock in the morning or 2:30 in the morning to go to work. And so we already had a great arrangement where we just make it work."
A big part of that is Hinson's commitment to coming home each weekend so she doesn't miss a marching band concert or family night.
"I am a proud band mom now," Hinson said ahead of the game in early September. "And my son will hate it, but I've got the button of him in the marching band outfit. I'm going to be fully decked out and cheering loudly for my kid, and I just, I love being able to kind of turn things off for a minute and just go sit and kind of be a human for a little bit."
Hinson grabbed a popcorn and a Diet Coke at the concession stand, put her hand over her heart and sang the national anthem, applauded when the team took the field and was quickly absorbed in conversations with friends seated nearby.
It had all the makings of a relaxing night.
Likely one of the last she'll have before Nov. 3.
Stephen Gruber-Miller is the Capitol bureau chief for the Des Moines Register. He can be reached by email at sgrubermil@registermedia.com, by phone at 515-284-8169 or on X at @sgrubermiller.
Ashley Hinson
- Age: 43.
- Political party: Republican Party.
- Town of residence: Marion.
- Occupation: Member of Congress, formerly a state representative and news anchor at KCRG.
- Education: Valley High School in West Des Moines; bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism from the University of Southern California.
- Political experience: Serving on the House Appropriations Committee and House Select Committee on China, as well as the House Ethics Committee; formerly a member of the Iowa House of Representatives.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Iowa's Hinson wants to 'solve problems' in Senate. Can she outrun Trump?
