Jim Carlin, the first Iowa Republican to launch a run for Senate this year, has spent the better part of a decade loudly proclaiming his loyalty to Donald Trump, including endorsing the false conspiracy theories Trump favors. Shortly after the November 2020 election, Carlin, then a member of the Iowa Senate, was a featured speaker at a Stand With President Trump Rally in Orange City, where he made the fact-free allegations that Joe Biden didn’t win the 2020 election and a massive conspiracy had deprived Trump of a second term.
Three days after Biden was sworn in as president, Carlin took to the floor of the Iowa Senate to declare, “Tyranny’s not at the door, it’s in the house,” because “widespread fraud” had stolen the election for Biden.
But none of his many public displays of loyalty have helped Carlin get Trump’s attention. On Friday, Trump endorsed Rep. Ashley Hinson for Senate.
“I know Ashley well and she is a WINNER!” Trump posted Friday on Truth Social. “A Loving Wife and Proud Mother of two sons, Ashley is a wonderful person, has ALWAYS delivered for Iowa, and will continue to do so in the United State Senate.”
Hinson had entered the Senate race three days earlier, declaring her candidacy four hours after Sen. Joni Ernst announced she would not seek reelection. Even before Trump posted, a steady parade of Republicans in the Senate and House had endorsed Hinson.
In her campaign kickoff announcement last Tuesday, Hinson began by saying she was running “to fight alongside President Trump and deliver on the America First agenda.”
Demonstrations of personal loyalty to Trump are now expected from all Republican candidates, with the exception of Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who has defied Trump on several issues and is leading the effort to get the Epstein files released. Hinson has always voted the way Trump has said members of Congress should, and has a long history of extravagantly praising the 79-year-old president, even denouncing efforts to hold him accountable for crimes committed when he wasn’t in office. In May 2024, she called his conviction on 34 felony fraud counts a “disgrace and total sham.” However, there was a real possibility she wouldn’t get his endorsement.
Hinson didn’t endorse Trump prior to the Iowa Republican Caucus in January 2024, deciding to remain neutral. According to Politico, “Trump lieutenants” tried to use Hinson’s ambition to eventually move up to the Senate to get an endorsement. Five days before the Jan. 15 caucus, Politico reported Hinson had been told unless she endorsed Trump, “she could expect no more, and perhaps less, than neutrality from Trump when the day came she wanted to succeed the 90-year-old dean of the delegation, Sen. Charles Grassley, according to people familiar with the conversation.”
Trump, of course, has never been one to let principle stand in his way of trying to claim credit for someone’s status as the frontrunner in the race, so in his post on Friday, he gave Hinson his “Complete and Total Endorsement.”
Hinson, for her part, has increased her praise of Trump.
“I think he’s going to go down as the best president in our history,” she told Fox News in an interview on Sunday.
Hinson did not explain why she believes Trump will overshadow Washington and Lincoln, or even lesser presidents, like Chester Alan Arthur or Warren G. Harding.
As for Carlin, he hasn’t yet made any public statement about Trump’s endorsement, but he can’t have been surprised Trump would endorse the candidate who will clearly win the nomination. When Carlin ran for the Senate in 2022, Trump endorsed Chuck Grassley and never mentioned Carlin.
