Independent expenditures and a nationwide blue wave defeat congressional opponents of commonsense animal welfare policies up and down the ballot in every competitive state.
WASHINGTON — Animal Wellness Action, a national policy and political organization dedicated to strengthening and advancing legal protections for animals, today cheered the success of its independent expenditure campaigns to oust several lawmakers who had been fighting against animal welfare in Congress and to support candidates who support animals. The organization engaged to help defeat candidates in Iowa, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania who had sought to federally override farm animal welfare laws in several states, to remove federal protections for wolves, and who reneged on pledges to strengthen laws against dogfighting and cockfighting.
The group successfully devoted resources to defeat Republican U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson in Iowa’s U.S. Senate race because of a bill she wrote to overturn Prop 12 and Question 3, humane housing laws for certain farm animals raised to produce food sold in California and Massachusetts. The group also applauded the defeat of U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany in the Wisconsin governor’s race over his zealotry on gray wolf policy, and the failed reelection bids by House Agriculture Committee members Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., and Rob Bresnahan, R-Pa., who both reneged on their prior support for the Fighting Inhumane Gambling and High-Risk Trafficking (FIGHT) Act, a bill to crack down on illegal animal fighting.
“We are not going to stand by while members of Congress try to overturn animal welfare laws approved by millions of American voters or dismantle bipartisan legislation to combat organized animal cruelty,” said Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action, which is the leading public policy organization advancing national and state policies for animals. “We made defeating these lawmakers a priority because of their records, and we invested in communicating those records to voters. Our message is that there must be political accountability when lawmakers seek to roll back protections for animals.”
Also losing in their reelection campaigns were Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., who joined Tiffany in leading anti-wolf efforts, and Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., who led legislation to prevent federal regulation of toxic lead ammunition dispersal on federal lands, which poisons countless scavenger species each year, including our nation’s iconic bald eagles. These lawmakers also voted for the Farm bill earlier this year, which contained Rep. Hinson’s bill to undo state laws on humane farm animal housing.
“There was not only a Democratic wave, but also an animal protection wave,” added Pacelle. “There was an electoral wipeout of lawmakers leading efforts to promote extreme confinement of farm animals, to promote mass killing of wolves, to promote the continued dispersal of mass loads of lead ammunition on our federal lands, and to stand in the way of legislation to dismantle dogfighting and cockfighting networks.”
The elections were a devastating blow to House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson, R-Pa., for advancing the 2026 Farm Bill that included provisions to override state farm animal welfare reforms and to gut the FIGHT Act and the Greyhound Protection Act. Rep. Zach Nunn, R-Iowa, another Agriculture Committee member to lose his seat, was an original co-sponsor of Hinson’s Save Our Bacon Act, which sought to override California’s Proposition 12 and Massachusetts’ Question 3. Nunn, who had been the lead Republican on the Greyhound Protection Act in past years, also supported an amendment to gut the bill he worked to pass in committee.
“Chairman Thompson has been fixated on thwarting state and federal animal welfare policies, and he pressured his committee members to take votes that tossed them into politically treacherous waters,” added Pacelle. “Asking his committee members to defend votes to block reforms to combat dogfighting and cockfighting and to overturn state anti-confinement laws that provide markets to humane-minded farmers is political malpractice. There was a wipeout of GOP Agriculture Committee members partly because he so badly bungled legislation supported by millions of Americans who care about animals.”
Animal Wellness Action also celebrated the election of a vast number of animal protection lawmakers, including Dr. Amish Shah in Arizona and Manny Rutinel in Colorado.
Some of Animal Wellness Action digital streaming ads can be viewed here: Hinson, Tiffany, Bresnahan.