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Gavin Newsom Slams MAGA Congresswoman Who Says America “Needs To Look More Like Iowa”

by in Daily Edition | September 7, 2025 3 min read

Rep. Ashley Hinson

Rep. Ashley Hinson, Office of Congresswoman Ashley Hinson, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

U.S. Representative Ashley Hinson (R-IA) announced that she’s running in the 2026 U.S. Senate election in Iowa to replace retiring Republican incumbent senator Joni Ernst. As seen below during an interview with Fox News, Hinson said President Donald Trump‘s priorities are her priorities including “having a safe country.” (Trump has endorsed Hinson for the Senate seat.)

Hinson amplified the interview on social media and reiterated what she told Fox News by writing with the video: “I don’t want to see the country look like California. I think the country needs to look a whole lot more like Iowa! That’s why I’m running for U.S. Senate.”

One of Hinson’s Democratic opponents, State Senator Zach Wahls, replied to Hinson: “That’s rich coming from a USC grad.” Hinson studied broadcast journalism at the University of Southern California before returning to her native Iowa. (Note: Wahls earned his BA from the University of Iowa, and his master’s degree in public affairs from Princeton University in New Jersey.)

Hinson’s comments about wanting Iowa not to look like California are being met with plenty of opposition, including blowback from California political influencer Nicole Minet, who rejected Hinson’s assertion largely on financial terms.

“California has the 4th largest economy in the **world**,” Minet wrote to Hinson. “Without it, your state wouldn’t exist. We pay far more to the federal government than we could ever get back.”

[NOTE: In March, the Iowa Business Council in its annual report “flagged Iowa’s slow population growth as a potential impediment to the state’s economic progress,” according to the Des Moines Register, which also pointed out that the “census report showed 98% of Iowa’s population growth from 2020 to 2024 was the result of international immigration.”]

Other critics suggested that Hinson’s statement contains racial undertones, with the language she chose functioning as a dog whistle. As one commenter wrote: “Iowa’s population in less than 17% minority. California is a majority minority state, one of the most diverse states in America. I don’t believe Ashley Hinson is just choosing corn over avocados.”

According to the World Population Review, the percentage of the population identifying as White in Iowa is 85.6%. In California the percentage is 44%.

As seen below, the office of California Governor Gavin Newsom responded to Hinson’s post, below, emphasizing California’s accolades as a economic powerhouse and adding — in direct refutation of Hinson’s primary implication about safety– that the Golden State has a “lower homicide rate than Iowa.” Newsom’s office advised the Iowa GOP Senate hopeful: “You may want to get a new talking point, Ashley.”