This may be the closest thing CIVPAC has published to an endorsement by faint praise.
We have endorsed Josh Turek for the United States Senate from Iowa over Republican Ashley Hinson. But this is not an endorsement in which one candidate clearly reflects our views and the other clearly does not.
Both candidates have strengths. Both have weaknesses. And under different national circumstances, I can easily imagine CIVPAC reaching the opposite conclusion.
Ashley Hinson has positions we like. She is generally more market-oriented than Turek. She supports right-to-work laws and school choice, positions substantially closer to our views on labor unions and K–12 education. She voted to accept the certified results of the 2020 presidential election and supported the Respect for Marriage Act. She is not simply an election-denying MAGA caricature.
Josh Turek, meanwhile, has plenty of positions we do not like.
He supports a wealth tax on billionaires. We do not. Our taxation, spending and debt policy favors a progressive tax system but puts considerable weight on economic efficiency, broad tax bases and long-term fiscal balance rather than new taxes on accumulated wealth.
Turek also supports federal food-price-gouging restrictions. We generally distrust price controls and laws that attempt to suppress price signals rather than address the underlying causes of scarcity.
He supports the PRO Act, which conflicts with our view that workers should be free to organize but that states should remain free to enact right-to-work laws. He would end school vouchers, while CIVPAC supports carefully designed experiments with vouchers and charter schools subject to common transparency and testing standards.
His foreign-policy views are also less developed than I would like in someone seeking a seat in the United States Senate.
So why endorse him?
Partly because endorsements are comparative judgments, not ideological purity tests.
Turek has demonstrated something we value enormously: an ability to represent people who do not necessarily share his party affiliation. Donald Trump carried his Iowa House district, yet Turek won it. He has crossed party lines on consequential votes and has been effective in a legislature overwhelmingly controlled by Republicans.
He is also substantially closer to us on abortion and personal liberty. And his combination of stronger border enforcement with a legal path for long-established undocumented residents is much closer to the compromise reflected in our immigration policy than either open-ended permissiveness or mass-deportation politics.
Turek also strongly opposes Trump’s broad tariffs. That puts him much closer to CIVPAC’s trade policy, which favors open trade, predictable rules and restoring greater congressional control over the use of tariffs.
Hinson, meanwhile, increasingly identifies herself with Donald Trump and his agenda. She has supported his broad tariff policies, which we regard as economically damaging and particularly inappropriate for an agricultural state.
She also voted against the 2026 Ukraine Support Act despite having previously expressed stronger support for resisting Russian aggression. CIVPAC’s Russia and Ukraine policy places considerable weight on deterrence, alliance reliability and denying Russia the benefits of territorial aggression.
Most importantly, the current political environment changes the weight we assign to these differences.
If Donald Trump and Trumpism were not dominant forces within the Republican Party, this endorsement might be different.
If Democrats controlled the presidency and Congress and the greater need were for a market-oriented check on the left, this endorsement might also be different.
In that environment, Hinson’s positions on taxes, school choice, labor policy and regulation might well carry greater weight.
But we do not make endorsements for an imaginary political system. We make them for the one that exists.
Today, institutional independence, constitutional restraint, respect for individual liberty, sensible trade policy, support for American alliances and a willingness by members of Congress to act as legislators rather than extensions of a president deserve unusual weight.
On balance, Turek comes out ahead.
Not by much.
That is why “endorsement by faint praise” seems about right. It is not meant as an insult to Turek. It is a recognition that serious political choices are often between imperfect alternatives.
CIVPAC’s purpose is not to find candidates with whom we agree on everything. It is to decide which available candidate is more likely to move government in a sensible, centrist and institutionally responsible direction.
In Iowa, by a narrow margin, we believe that candidate is Josh Turek.