Jim Carlin, who lost Iowa’s Republican U.S. Senate primary earlier this month, said he cannot tell his supporters to vote for Ashley Hinson, the GOP candidate who beat him.
In an unusual move, Carlin posted a message to supporters on his campaign website saying, “we do not owe blind loyalty to any political party. Votes should be earned, not assumed.”
“So let me be direct: I cannot in good conscience ask you to vote for Ashley Hinson,” he wrote. “She does not share our values, and a Republican label is not enough. It has never been enough. And until our party understands that our votes must be earned, not assumed, nothing will change.”
Hinson handily defeated Carlin by 48 percentage points in the June 2 primary, carrying all 99 counties and winning 74% of the vote to Carlin’s 26%.
Hinson, who represents northeast Iowa’s 2nd District in Congress, has the endorsement of President Donald Trump, incumbent U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst, Gov. Kim Reynolds and most major Republicans in the state.
Carlin, a former state senator, also lost a U.S. Senate primary in 2022 against U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley by a similar margin.
In his message, Carlin wrote that “perhaps it is time for something new.”
“Perhaps it is time for a Christian constitutional conservative movement or party that actually represents the people who still believe in faith, family, freedom, truth, borders, honest money and the Constitution of the United States,” he said. “And if standing for those things means losing elections for a season, then so be it. Better to lose fighting honorably than to win by surrendering everything that matters.”
Iowa law prevents Carlin from running in the Nov. 3 general election as an independent or third-party candidate.
Hinson heads into the general election with a financial advantage over Democratic nominee Josh Turek, reporting more than $6 million in the bank ahead of the primary compared with $726,000 for Turek.
The Republican-aligned Senate Leadership Fund has pledged to spend $29 million on advertising this year to get Hinson elected. The Senate Majority PAC, a Democratic super PAC, has committed to spend $13.4 million against her.
Still, Republicans expect a tough fight to hold the Senate seat this year as Democrats view it as a potential pickup in their effort to flip control of the chamber.
Following Turek’s primary win, elections analysts at the Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball shifted their rating of Iowa’s contest from a “likely Republican” victory to the more competitive “leans Republican” category.
“Ashley will continue to unite Iowans behind her commonsense, conservative agenda and earn the votes of all Iowans — Republican, independent, and Democrat — who want a strong, effective leader as their next Senator,” said Hinson’s communications director, Billy Fuerst.
Stephen Gruber-Miller is the Capitol bureau chief for the Des Moines Register. He can be reached by email at sgrubermil@registermedia.com, by phone at 515-284-8169 or on X at @sgrubermiller.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Senate primary loser Jim Carlin tells GOP not to support Ashley Hinson
Reporting by Stephen Gruber-Miller, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
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By Stephen Gruber-Miller, Des Moines Register | USA TODAY Network
