On June 2, 2026, Iowa Democrats picked their nominee for U.S. Senate: state Rep. Josh Turek, a former Paralympic gold medalist who beat state Sen. Zach Wahls for the chance to run for the seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Joni Ernst.

His opponent didn't even wait an hour to start lying about him.

Ashley Hinson, who won the Republican primary with Donald Trump's endorsement, released an attack ad against Turek less than an hour after he secured the nomination. That speed tells you the ad was written and ready to go before anyone knew the results. And what was in it tells you something worse.

Three claims, and Turek has supported none of them

Hinson's ad threw three big accusations at Turek. Here they are, and here's the reality:

1. That Turek "supports kids changing gender without parental consent." He has never advocated for or voted for that.
2. That he supports "amnesty for undocumented immigrants who commit crimes." He has never advocated for or voted for that, either.
3. That he backs a "90% tax rate on hardworking Americans." Same story — he's never supported it.

In other words, the ad isn't shading the truth or taking a vote out of context. It invents positions Turek has never held and puts them in his mouth. That's not a tough campaign. That's just making things up.

How the "gender" smear was built

It's worth seeing how Hinson's team manufactured the first claim, because it shows the trick.

The ad pointed to SF 496, a 2023 Iowa law that restricts what K–12 schools can teach about sexual orientation and gender identity — and that has been used to pull books from school libraries. Turek opposed that law. He called it "state censorship" and said:

"This is what we're spending our time on? Trying to ban libraries and books and prevent kids from having access to books? I think it's fundamentally wrong."

So Turek's actual position is that he doesn't think the government should be banning books from Iowa schools. Hinson's campaign took that — opposing a book-ban law — and twisted it into "supports kids changing gender without parental consent." Those are not the same thing. They're not even close. One is about library books. The other is a deliberately scary claim designed to mislead.

This fits Ashley Hinson's record

Hinson built her career as a TV journalist, someone whose whole job was supposed to be getting the facts right. So she knows the difference between true and false. She just doesn't seem to think it matters when there's an election to win.

This isn't the first time. In 2020, the New York Times found that Hinson's campaign had copied passages word-for-word from the Times, the Des Moines Register, and CNBC — more than a dozen times — in op-eds and on her website. She apologized and blamed a staffer.

And when she launched her Senate campaign, Hinson said she wants to be "President Trump's top ally in the United States Senate." Not Iowa's top ally. Trump's. The attack ad is what that looks like in practice: Trump-style politics, where you say whatever works and worry about the truth never.

Iowans deserve a real debate

Iowa is heading into a real Senate race, with real issues — soybean farmers losing China as a buyer, seniors worried about Social Security, families facing higher health costs. Those are the things a Senate campaign should be about.

Instead, Hinson's opening move was to invent positions her opponent never held and rush them onto the air before the votes were even cold. If Hinson had a strong case for her own record, she wouldn't need to make one up about Turek.

We deserve a senator who can win on the truth.

Source

This post is based on reporting by American Journal News.