Thune campaigns with Hinson ahead of Senate Republican leadership vote

After Nov. 3, senators meet by secret ballot in the nation’s capital

Senate Majority Leader John Thune joined Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson on Friday in northwest Iowa as the two campaigned for the Nov. 3 midterms. Hinson said she was grateful for Thune’s visit as they stopped for a Sioux City chamber of commerce luncheon, a tour of the Iowa Air National Guard’s refueling wing, a roundtable with local business owners and meet-and-greets at a packed high school football game that night. Hinson is locked in a tight race against Democrat Josh Turek to replace retiring Republican Sen. Joni Ernst in a deep red corner of Iowa that Republicans could not have envisioned as a tossup a year earlier.

Thune said he would not be offended if some Republicans did not want to campaign with him. He said he knew he had drawn intense criticism from the party’s base and President Donald Trump over the Senate’s inability to pass voter legislation this year. Republican candidates in marquee Senate races had welcomed his help as he traveled around the country in the weeks before the midterms.

During a brief rest between stops in the back of Hinson’s campaign bus, Thune and Hinson took part in a joint interview. “I’m absolutely convinced that she flat has to win, and if she doesn’t, we’re not going to be in the majority,” Thune said. He acknowledged that the environment for Republicans was tough, but said, “we have to be able to deliver a message that you have a clear choice in front of you about two very different paths.”

Hinson acknowledged that voters had concerns. But “there is a lot at stake in this election,” she said, “and Iowans are pretty savvy people to understand that this is a six-year term.” At the business roundtable, Thune told voters who showed up to “do everything you can to help her get there.” He also said, “We’ve got to turn out the vote.”

Thune also campaigned with Republican Senate candidates in Nebraska, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi, Kentucky, Florida and Minnesota, and was headed to Ohio in the coming days to help Republican Sen. Jon Husted, who faced a tough challenge from former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown. It was not always a given that Thune, elected by his conference to replace Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell two years ago, would have so much face time with voters and candidates.

Voters focus on costs, Iran and farm pressures

The stakes were enormous in Iowa and in several other traditionally Republican states as voters voiced frustration with Trump, his war in Iran, high gasoline prices and high grocery prices. Despite a map favoring Republicans, Democrats remained hopeful that they could win the Senate. Like several other Democrats running in red states, Turek, a state legislator, was telling Iowa voters he would be a bipartisan voice in Washington.

Voters at the Iowa events were not asking Thune and Hinson about the SAVE America Act. They were mostly focused on issues such as childcare and how the economy and farm-input costs affected their businesses. Hinson had appeared with Trump at a Sioux City rally the previous night while also speaking out against decisions she opposed, including increased beef imports and a deal with Russia to import diesel fuel.

Hinson said she would be with Trump when the president was right and in his ear when he was wrong: “I’m going to be with him, and if he’s wrong about something, I’m going to be in his ear telling him.” Thune and Hinson also had to answer for Trump’s war in Iran, as they had joined most Republicans in voting against repeated Democratic attempts to stop it. Rising gasoline prices since the war began and Trump’s trade war had hit Iowa farmers particularly hard. Hinson said on the campaign trail that she wanted to see the war come to a “successful and immediate end.”

At the chamber of commerce luncheon, Thune said the conflict was “not going to be a long-term thing.” He predicted, “There’s going to be a solution there, an answer there soon,” and said fuel prices would eventually come down. It remained unclear whether enough voters would trust the Republican candidates. Outside one of Hinson’s events, two Turek supporters staged a small protest.

Valerie Conaway Cote, a Democrat from Sioux City, said Hinson was “doing Trump’s bidding.” She said she used to like Thune and thought he was “a respectable man that saw both sides and made reasonable decisions.” But, she said, “he is firmly in Trump’s corner, and he seems to bend the knee.”

SAVE America Act remains blocked in the Senate

Some on the right blamed Thune for the failed effort to pass the SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship for voters and mandate voter ID across the country. Thune supported the bill, but it had no chance in the 100-member Senate with the filibuster intact because Republicans needed Democratic support for any legislation to win the necessary 60 votes.

President Donald Trump had pressed Thune to change the Senate’s rules and ditch the filibuster, but Thune had refused, citing the need to stop Democratic legislation if and when Republicans lost power again. Their tensions peaked that summer when Trump appeared to question Thune’s leadership. Asked in the Oval Office whether the South Dakota Republican was the man for the job, Trump replied, “we’re going to find out, and I’ll let you know.”

Trump had also said more than once that he liked Thune personally, and Thune’s office had released photos earlier that month showing the majority leader and his grandchildren at the White House during a personal tour led by Trump. Thune was well-liked among his colleagues and enjoyed strong support within the GOP conference and from possible future members such as Hinson. At one of the Iowa events, he joked, “I tell all of our candidates, I’ll come out for you or against you, whichever helps you the most.”

Leadership vote and next year’s agenda

In the nation’s capital, Senate Republicans will gather a week after the Nov. 3 election to decide whether to reelect Thune as leader. The vote will be by secret ballot, and no one has stepped up to challenge him. Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio made his supportive comments earlier this month, saying, “The guy’s an extraordinarily nice human being.” Asked whether Thune had broad support, Moreno said, “Do I think he’s got broad support? Yes.”

Moreno said he did not think Thune would be blamed if Republicans suffered losses in the midterms. “At the end of the day, if there’s any Republican losses, it’s going to be about gas prices,” he said.

If Republicans held the Senate, Thune said part of next year’s agenda would include trying to put guardrails around artificial intelligence along with renewed attempts at housing and tax reform. He said Republicans also would try again on permitting legislation and a broad bill to regulate college sports if those did not get done this year. If Democrats won, “you’re going to have two years of paralysis,” Thune said, with Trump in the White House. “And I don’t think that’s good for anybody.”