Go over to the news section and read my dispatch from Boone, Iowa, where I covered GOP Representative Ashley Hinson’s rally as she runs for her state’s open Senate seat.
There was something I wanted to add that didn’t quite fit into that piece, which was focused on the way Hinson has navigated the unpopularity of President Donald Trump’s policies while recognizing the need to court the White House and the party’s base.
As would be the case in any election cycle, Hinson has faced several attack ads. A few of these accuse her of enriching herself during her time in the House of Representatives and covering up the release of government files pertaining to its investigation of Jeffrey Epstein. These ads have been rated “mostly false” by PolitiFact, but Hinson has nonetheless gone out of her way to defend herself.
She was asked about the claims about her wealth in a debate with Josh Turek, her Democratic opponent, and about the Epstein files in a telephone town hall with voters, so she naturally defended herself in those instances. But Hinson also used part of her stump speech to address these subjects during two of her rallies that I covered over the past two days.
“What I also need you to do is go out there and tell the truth, because there are a lot of lies out there about me,” she told supporters in Indianola on Monday night. She explained at that rally why the attacks on her wealth and her record on the so-called Epstein files are false. In Boone on Tuesday, she offered similar defenses against these attacks.
As the old political adage goes, “If you’re explaining, you’re losing.” The fact that Hinson is devoting time during her rallies to respond to attacks that have been rated false by an independent fact checker suggests that she might feel vulnerable regarding these issues.