Iowa’s all Republican congressional delegation is scrambling to distance itself from President Donald Trump as the party confronts the possibility of an electoral wipeout.

Rep. Ashley Hinson, the Republican nominee for Iowa’s open U.S. Senate seat, called Monday for an “immediate end” to the war. She blamed the conflict for surging diesel prices that are hurting Iowa farmers.

“Iowans are being squeezed and shouldn’t have to foot the bill at the pump or the checkout line for the war in Iran,” Hinson wrote on X. She also urged Congress to suspend the gas tax, ban diesel exports, and create a “diesel relief program to help our farmers and truckers being crushed by the high costs.”

Hinson presented herself as a determined bipartisan problem solver, writing, “I am working every day to deliver bipartisan results for Iowans and I will work with anyone who is ready to tackle this challenge immediately.”

Her voting record tells a rather less heroic story. Hinson voted four times against ending Trump’s war, including a vote last week against a war powers resolution, making her new stance look like a frantic exercise in political self preservation.

Democratic opponent Josh Turek quickly highlighted the contradiction. “[I]t’s easy to send a tweet but when you had the chance to vote to end this war, you chose not to. You voted seven times to continue it, including just last week,” Turek wrote on X.

“It’s time to actually end the forever wars and put Iowa and Iowans first,” Turek added. Hinson’s proposal for government relief benefiting farmers and truckers also resembles the sort of federal assistance that she and other Republicans typically condemn.

Two Republican House colleagues from Iowa, Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Zach Nunn, voted for the war powers resolution for the first time last week. Their shift suggests they also see the conflict as a threat to their reelection campaigns.

Miller-Meeks and Nunn are running in competitive races this fall, although Trump carried both seats in 2024. Like Hinson, they are now promoting policy changes intended to reduce fuel costs.

“We must immediately suspend the federal and state gas tax, sell American diesel to Americans first, and get relief to the farmers and truckers who cannot wait,” Miller-Meeks wrote on X. “Then we fix the cause by drilling more here, selling E15 year-round, and ending the open-ended war. Last week I voted with Republicans and Democrats to do exactly that.”

Nunn offered his own list. “We have to bring down the price of diesel,” he wrote on X. “My plan: Sell American energy to Americans first. Pass my Iowa-led biofuel bill = bring down gas 50 cents. Hold Big Oil accountable for gouging.”

The timing reeks of panic. A Marist poll released Tuesday found Hinson trailing Turek in the Senate contest by 8 percentage points, with 13% of Republican voters planning to defect and support the Democrat.

None of the lawmakers’ proposals to reduce fuel prices would take effect before the election anyway. Republicans left Washington, D.C., early to campaign, even as they began advertising their newfound urgency back home.

Experts also warned that these ideas are unlikely to work and could cause additional harm. “U.S. diesel prices are determined not by a U.S. supply and demand balance, but a global one,” gas prices expert Patrick De Haan wrote on X.

“Keeping distillates and diesel home does not change the world price that reference our prices. You can’t fence off a globally traded commodity by executive order and expect the global price to stop applying to it,” De Haan added.

De Haan said an export ban could push countries buying diesel from the United States to seek permanent alternatives, potentially causing refinery closures. Hinson, Nunn, and Miller-Meeks refused for months to use their constitutional powers to stop Trump, but now they want voters to embrace a convenient about face after the damage they helped create.