Ashley Hinson asked supporters on Wednesday to help give her campaign bus a little gas money during a stop in Fort Dodge, putting a small request at the center of a bigger Iowa Senate fight over fuel costs. The moment landed on a statewide bus tour and quickly became a line of attack from Josh Turek.
Turek responded on Friday by seizing on the irony. He wrote on X that Hinson was begging for gas money while Iowans were struggling to fill their tanks and Iowa farmers were struggling to afford the diesel needed to harvest their fields. He called the request “shameful,” turning a routine campaign ask into a campaign issue of its own.
The numbers gave his attack some weight. AAA said Iowa's average price for regular gasoline was about $4.14 a gallon on Saturday, up from about $2.72 a year earlier. Diesel averaged about $6.07 a gallon, compared with roughly $3.43 one year earlier. AAA also said this week that gasoline prices remained unusually high for the time of year while crude oil prices stayed elevated.
That is why the exchange has become part of the closing weeks of the Iowa Senate race. Fuel costs are not an abstract talking point here. They are a daily expense for drivers and a bigger hit for farmers, and both candidates have tried to make the issue work for them. During their final debate on Tuesday, Turek argued that the conflict in Iran was helping drive up gasoline, diesel and agricultural input costs in Iowa, while Hinson laid out ways she says would help bring prices down.
The friction is hard to miss. Hinson has framed herself as a critic of policies that keep energy costs high, and she and Turek both opposed Donald Trump's move to ease sanctions affecting Russian diesel imports. At the debate, Hinson said the United States needed to lower diesel prices but should not be making a deal with Russia to do it, while also proposing a temporary gas tax cut, a possible diesel rebate for agricultural producers and more American biofuels. Turek said lower prices should not come at the expense of benefiting Vladimir Putin.
Hinson has also defended her votes while saying she wants the conflict to end. She told the debate audience that the United States needed assurances that Iran would not develop a nuclear weapon and said she trusted the American military to achieve that objective. She had previously accused Turek of overselling the conflict's role in Iowa's costs, but his response to the bus request folded the campaign's own language back on her. The question now is not whether fuel prices matter in this race. It is how much a candidate can talk about pain at the pump while asking voters to help cover her own gas.
