Just two days before Iowans can begin to cast ballots in the 2024 election, 2nd Congressional District candidates Rep. Ashley Hinson and Sarah Corkery sparred over policies that shaped the prior session in Washington: immigration, abortion, and the economy.
Hinson, a Republican from Marion, is the district’s incumbent, looking for her third term in the U.S. House. Corkery, from Cedar Falls, is running as a Democrat, and her campaign marks her first step into politics.
Iowa’s 2nd District has voted strongly Republican for the past two years, and before that it was Hinson’s campaign that ousted sitting Democrat Abby Finkenauer in 2020.
Immigration and the border
Securing the southern border is one of Hinson’s main priorities for the upcoming session. In the debate hosted by Iowa PBS, she said she supports mass deportation measures through coordinated efforts with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. However, that can’t be done without more support at the federal level.
“We do need more border patrol agents,” Hinson said. “The biggest question is, though: How are we going to get those bodies down there to work in these places? Not everyone wants to work in law enforcement, and certainly not for CBP if the administration isn’t supporting them to do their job.”
Hinson voted to pass resolutions condemning the Biden Administration’s handling of border security twice in the past year. She’s also for ending “catch and release” programs and building a wall.
Corkery agreed that more resources should be devoted to border security but was critical of Republican lawmakers’ recent efforts to hold up funding. She advocated for a return to bipartisanship in defining what a secure border means.
“What we want to do is go back to the plan that Republicans worked on with Democrats that was a bipartisan deal,” Corkery said. “It would have given us more border agents, but who blocked that? Extreme conservative Republicans blocked that.”
Corkery added that she’s a supporter of Vice President Kamala Harris’s proposal to make the path for asylum-seeking more difficult, and to give more authority to the president to shut down the border, if necessary.
Abortion and healthcare
The conversation turned to abortion rights, where Corkery has been a firm supporter of abortion rights. She said that codifying Roe V. Wade is the most important domestic issue for the next Congress.
Corkery has been outspoken for zero governmental interference when it comes to abortion access and made her stance clear on Monday night, citing Iowa’s ban on abortions as early as six weeks as one way the issue becomes trivialized.
“I think it should just be between a person and a doctor; I’m going to push back on this,” she said. “We’ve all talked about that one indicator. This is not a flippant conversation, and that’s what it becomes when we focus on one metric. Nobody should tell you the fetus you carry has more rights than you do. That’s just wrong.”
The Cedar Falls Democrat also criticized her opponent for failing to fully protect Iowans’ access to contraception and IVF.
Hinson, on the other hand, has been a proponent of Iowa’s current law banning abortion after cardiac activity is detected. Hinson said that no piece of legislation at the federal level would get her approval without exceptions for rape, incest, and maternal health threats, however, in January the Congresswoman cosponsored the Life at Conception Act. That bill does not include those exceptions as it is currently written.
Inflation and the economy
The pair took opposing stances on inflation and the Trump-era tax cuts, which are set to expire at the end of 2025.
Hinson said she supports keeping those tax cuts in place for the sake of small businesses, especially if inflation continues to rise.
“I think it’s really important that we protect Iowans from a tax increase next year,” Hinson argued. “Small businesses are already feeling the pinch of inflation. People can’t buy as much as they could before. That’s the reality under Biden and Harris’s America.”
Corkery pushed for ending the tax cuts, claiming they generally only help the wealthy. Corkery also proposed her solution to prevent Social Security from drying up in the next decade.
She wants to eliminate or raise the Social Security tax cap tied to payroll, which in 2024 disappears for annual earnings over $168,600.
“I think those folks can continue to pay that,” Corkery argued. “The reason they don’t is they don’t want to pay into a system where they won’t get all their money back in benefits.”
Corkery criticized her opponent on that legislation, saying the cap is identical to Hinson’s salary. In fact, members of Congress earn $174,000.
“The people who wrote the bill want to make sure they get their money back. I want to make sure this stays solvent, so we need to make sure some people pay more than others if they can afford it.”
Corkery also attacked Hinson’s stance on raising the retirement age for Social Security benefits.
In response, the Republican Congresswoman said she would not support any further cuts to Social Security moving forward and called for a bipartisan solution to keeping the program in place.
“I think the way we need to approach this, because it has become so politicized, is to have a bipartisan commission come up with a whole table of solutions and have Congress vote them up or down," Hinson said.
A bipartisan commission for Social Security has been proposed by the House Budget and Ways and Means Committees.
Monday’s debate was the first and only between the two candidates. According to an August Des Moines Register poll, the district splits about 52 percent Republican, 44 percent Democrat, with roughly 4 percent of voters undecided.
