Joni Ernst, a member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, announced that she will not seek re-election in 2026.
Ernst, R-Iowa, has been United States senator since 2015, said in a video message, “as our family ages and grows, it’s my time for me to give back to them,” and that she would end her tenure as a senator as her term expires.
During her time in the Senate, Ernst was known for:
- Co-sponsoring the Beagle Brigade Act of 2023 into law, which permanently authorized the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Detector Dog Training Center in Newnan, Georgia.
- Being one of the Senators to introduce the Responding to Epidemic Losses and Investing in the Economic Future (RELIEF) for Producers Act of 2020, aimed at providing relief to livestock and poultry producers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Pushing for indemnity payments for turkey producers whose flocks have been struck by avian metapneumovirus (aMPV).
- Opposing Meatless Mondays in the United States military.
- Criticizing USDA funding for Chinese avian influenza research and funding for the now-defunct Pure Prairie Poultry.
Ernst will not be the only agriculture committee member to retire. Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minnesota, earlier announced she would not run again.
Hinson announces candidacy
Following Ernst’s announcement, U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, stated that she will seek her spot in the U.S. Senate.
Hinson, now in her third term in the House, is largely known as an opponent of California’s Proposition 12, which calls for all eggs raised in or sold in California to come from cage-free hens and all pork produced or sold in California to come from farms that do not use gestation stalls.
She has introduced in the House two measures that seek to overturn the controversial law because of the law’s impact on production methods in other states: the Save Our Bacon Act and the Ending Agriculture Trade Suppression (EATS) Act. The two bills were respectively introduced in 2025 and 2023. Neither act has become law.
