Welcome back to The Status Quo Squad — your weekly newsletter from the Iowa Democratic Party, bringing you the latest updates on the chaotic, messy, and wide-open Republican gubernatorial primary where all the candidates promise one thing: a continuation of the status quo that has failed Iowa for the last decade.
This week, the Republican gubernatorial primary made national news for being a wide-open mess, Zach Lahn faced scrutiny for spending more time at his home in Kansas than at his Iowa farm, and Adam Steen was exposed for outsourcing his business to China. The one year anniversary of Randy Feenstra announcing his campaign put a spotlight on his failures, while National Police Week served as a reminder of how the field shares a dangerous record of undermining law enforcement.
Let’s get into it.
Messy primary alert: With 18 days to go until the primary, things are uglier than ever
New reporting from the New York Times detailed how — even as early voting started this week — Randy Feenstra, Adam Steen, Zach Lahn, Brad Sherman, and Eddie Andrews are still locked in a “bare-knuckle, personality-focused primary fight” with no clear frontrunner.
- Iowa Republicans are “telling anybody and everybody Mr. Feenstra can’t win the general election because he cannot motivate the Republican base,” and voters from Feenstra’s own congressional district “say he has hardly been present in his district since being elected to Congress in 2020” and “are sick and tired of him not showing up and not giving us answers.”
- According to the New York Times, “the signs of headwinds are all around Republicans” after Feenstra, Steen, Lahn, Sherman, and Andrews all pledged to continue Kim Reynolds’ deeply unpopular legacy.
Also this week, Iowa Democratic Party Chair Rita Hart, State Sen. Tom Townsend, and IBEW 704 member Zach Shireman hosted a virtual press conference ahead of Reynolds’ legacy tour stop in Dubuque to set the record straight on her record of failing Iowans and the Republicans running to replace her.
For more on what they had to say, click here.
Postcard from Kansas: Zach Lahn continues to live in Kansas while running for Iowa governor
On the second day of early voting, the Des Moines Register revealed that Republican gubernatorial candidate and career political operative Zach Lahn “maintains a home in Kansas,” and that he had to re-register to vote in Iowa in 2024 — just before the two year minimum to meet Iowa’s residency requirement to run for governor.
- Despite introducing himself to voters as an “Iowa First” family farmer, flight data from Lahn’s personal plane shows he still lives in Kansas, with his plane spending “75 nights in Wichita” compared to just “51 nights in Belle Plaine,” Lahn’s supposed hometown.
Lahn promised voters he’d “be in Iowa as much as humanly possible” if elected, but Iowans deserve better than a part-time resident running our state.
Read more from the Des Moines Register on Kansas’ favorite frequent flyer and part time resident here.
Caught red-handed: Adam Steen lied about creating jobs in Iowa, outsourced his business to China
A new report from American Journal News reveals that Republican gubernatorial candidate and Kim Reynolds’ right-hand man Adam Steen outsourced his West Des Moines hunting equipment business to China, despite claiming to value “putting Americans first,” and introducing himself to voters in campaign ads as a “business builder” who “helped companies grow and prosper right here in Iowa.”
- Steen is “campaigning for Iowa governor as an entrepreneur and job creator, even though his company outsourced production to China.” Steen “admitted in an October 2025 Instagram post” that his company’s products were “outsource[d] to China.”
- As American Journal News reports, “Steen’s pledge to bring jobs back to Iowa was further undermined by a recent campaign ad in which he boasted that he would ‘stop China from stealing the American dream.’ The ad features stock footage of farmland with the words ‘Keep Iowa Free’ emblazoned across it. The footage, however, was shot in Georgia.”
Feenstra fail of the week: A year of running for governor with only a failed record to show for it
This week was the one year anniversary of Randy Feenstra launching an exploratory committee for governor! The Iowa Democratic Party celebrated by releasing a new digital video highlighting a year of Feenstra’s failures.
Over the last year, Feenstra has:
- Voted to gut Medicaid and put rural hospitals on the chopping block,
- Voted to protect costly tariffs hurting Iowa farmers,
- Voted to continue the war in Iran that’s sent gas prices in Iowa skyrocketing,
- And committed to zero Republican primary debates.
Watch the video here:
GOP candidates agree: Cozying up to violent criminals who attacked police officers
National Police Week put a spotlight on how the Republican gubernatorial candidates are bankrolled by violent criminals who attacked police officers.
- Zach Lahn “received [his] largest campaign donations from” Dan DeNeui, who was “later pardoned for [his] roles in the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot, campaign finance records show … video evidence showed DeNeui using a flag pole to break into the Capitol and hit a police officer.”
- Brad Sherman’s largest donor, Leo Kelly, “was one of the first offenders arrested for his actions at the U.S. Capitol.” Sherman has appeared on Kelly’s podcast and praised him and the other violent rioters at the Capitol, calling them “patriots.”
- Sherman also proudly accepted an endorsement from former State Rep. Luana Stoltenberg, who attended a rally at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021, and claimed “there are NO riots here.”
Randy Feenstra also has a record of undermining law enforcement. Feenstra refused to speak out against letting dangerous rioters who assaulted police officers back on the street and even praised these violent criminals as “a wonderful group.”
Bottom line: No matter who emerges from this underwhelming and extreme crop of candidates, they are all running to continue Kim Reynolds’ failed policies that have put Iowa dead last in economic growth, set kids and public school teachers up for failure, and ripped away access to health care.
That’s a wrap for this edition of The Status Quo Squad. Thanks for reading, we’ll see you next week.