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The editorial board of prominent Iowa newspaper The Des Moines Register has backed Democratic Senate candidate Josh Turek over Republican opponent Ashley Hinson.
It published its endorsement on Sunday, arguing that Turek would be “most likely” to remove “some of the external pressure on agriculture in Iowa,” namely through his pledge to “demand that President Donald Trump stop waging war on Iran and stop upsetting the markets for Iowa’s crop exports and inputs.”
The economic fallout from Trump’s trade tariffs and rising domestic fuel prices tied to the ongoing conflict in Iran has hit farmers particularly hard, making it a crucial issue in races across America’s agricultural heartland. Democrats, trying to win back control of the U.S. Senate, hope to turn this frustration into votes for Turek and its other candidates.
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Although Iowa has voted Republican in Senate elections since 2008, the Cook Political Report lists Iowa's Senate race as a "toss-up." The Hawkeye State also has a history of voting for presidential candidates from both political parties. Trump won Iowa the last three election cycles, but before that, President Barack Obama won Iowa twice.
Republicans are defending the governor's office, left open by GOP Senator Joni Ernst’s retirement, and three competitive Republican-held House districts.
Turek responded to the endorsement in a post on Facebook, saying he was “grateful” for it. “We're going to win this race and deliver change for Iowa,” he added. Newsweek has contacted campaigns for Turek and Hinson for comment.
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Why The Des Moines Register Backed Turek Over Hinson
The editorial board said Turek “is a compelling candidate in any environment,” but it stressed his commitment to improving things economically for Iowan farmers.
Both Turek and Hinson have focused on the economic hardship facing Iowans throughout their campaigns, and both have called for an end to the war in Iran. Hinson has tried to distance herself from Trump, positioning herself as willing to work across party lines for Iowa and saying she was not scared to confront Trump over issues they disagreed on.
Hinson called for an “immediate end” to the war in Iran last month, saying “Iowans are being squeezed and shouldn't have to foot the bill at the pump or the checkout line for the war in Iran.” But this was a departure from her own voting record—she voted against bringing an immediate end to the war in Iran four times this year.
The board touched on this when it said: “The current Republican-controlled Congress has made plain that only Democrats will push back on President Donald Trump’s damaging policies and his self-aggrandizing whims in any meaningful way.”
It also praised Turek’s policy knowledge and ability to connect with people, citing his previous representation of Carter Lake and part of Council Bluffs in the Iowa House since 2023.
The Des Moines Register’s Endorsement Record
The Register, which has endorsed political candidates since at least 1912, has backed both Democrats and Republicans, but recent decades have seen it repeatedly swing toward Democrats.
The Register did not endorse either Trump or former Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in 2024 because its owner, the newspaper chain Gannett, said none of its outlets would endorse a presidential candidate, but they could still endorse local candidates. Gannett spokesperson Lark-Marie Antón told CNN at the time that the firm had made the decision because “we believe America’s future is decided locally – one race at a time.”
Before that, The Register had backed Democratic presidential candidates Joe Biden in 2020, Hilary Clinton in 2016 and Barack Obama in 2008, according to a Noah Veltman compilation of newspaper presidential endorsements. While The Register broke its Democratic streak to support Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in 2012, it endorsed a Democrat in every other election between 1980 and 2004.
Similarly, The Register has mostly endorsed Democrats in local elections - including all four U.S. House contests and Theresa Greenfield’s Senate bid in 2020, as well as Rob Sand for governor this year.
Judge Dismisses Trump's Case Against The Register
Last month, a judge dismissed Donald Trump’s lawsuit accusing The Des Moines Register and its former pollster of misrepresenting the state of the 2024 presidential race, rejecting the president’s claim that the newspaper’s poll coverage violated Iowa’s consumer fraud law.
Trump filed the lawsuit against Selzer, The Des Moines Register and the newspaper’s parent company in December 2024, accusing them of fraudulently publishing inaccurate poll results to damage him and help Democrats, saying coverage of polls is not protected speech.
The poll, conducted by Selzer’s company in the final days of October and released just days before Election Day 2024, showed then-Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democrats’ presidential nominee, capturing 47 percent of Iowa likely voters, to Trump’s 44 percent. Trump ultimately won the support of 56 percent of the nearly 2 million Iowans who voted.
Trump, along with Republicans U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks and former Iowa state Senator Brad Zaun, alleged the misleading coverage diminished their reputations, valuable time in the final days of the campaign, and campaign funds and resources.
But Iowa District Judge Scott J. Beattie said that allowing the lawsuit and its “faulty” claims to proceed could have a chilling effect that “can discourage others from reporting on and debating public affairs.” He sided with pollster J. Ann Selzer and the newspaper in affirming that the poll and coverage of it were constitutionally protected political speech, not a commercial product. Trump’s legal team said after the ruling that the president plans to take his case to the Iowa Supreme Court.
Early voting remains underway in Iowa, where voters have been able to cast ballots since October 14 and can continue doing so through November 2, one day before the state's November 3 Election Day.
Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here. Contact Newsweek editors on this story: John Fitzpatrick and Gray R. Thomas
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