Welcome back to Frequent Flyer Fridays — your weekly newsletter from the Iowa Democratic Party, bringing you the latest updates on everything Kansas’ favorite frequent flyer Zach Lahn is up to.
This week, Zach Lahn hid from Iowans for nine days after the primary, then tried to change the subject with an eleventh-hour running mate pick who represents the worst parts of Kim Reynolds’ failed agenda. Lahn was also exposed for making six figures as a political operative and backing vouchers that have tanked Iowa’s education ranking, while the new inflation report put a spotlight on how Lahn supports cost-raising tariffs.
Let’s get into it.
📍 Where was Kansas carpetbagger Zach Lahn this week? No one knows because he hasn’t held a single public event in 10 days.
📞 Zach Lahn, call your office: Running mate announcement fails to distract from MIA campaign
Iowans are wondering where career political operative and Kansas carpetbagger Zach Lahn is after he spent the first two weeks of the general election in hiding. Lahn selecting State Rep. Derek Wulf as his running mate — a government insider who voted for the worst of Kim Reynolds’ failed agenda — has completely failed to distract from how Lahn has yet to hold a single public event since he became the nominee.
Here’s what you need to know about Lahn’s running mate Derek Wulf:
- As chair of the House Agriculture Committee, Wulf sponsored a bill making it harder for the Department of Natural Resources to put bodies of water on the impaired list.
- Wulf voted to pass SF478, which blocked the state auditor from seeing how public funds are being spent and made it harder to hold the Reynolds administration and government insiders accountable.
- Wulf voted to pass Kim Reynolds’ unaccountable school voucher program that has tanked Iowa’s education ranking, drives up costs, and rips funding away from the vast majority of Iowa’s students, teachers, and parents to foot the bill for wealthy families.
- Wulf accepted a $1,000 contribution from Syngenta, a massive agriculture giant owned by the Chinese Communist Party which controls hundreds of acres of Iowa farmland.
🧾 We’ve got the receipts: Self-proclaimed “political outsider” Zach Lahn made six figures working in politics
New reporting from the American Journal News reveals that Zach Lahn made hundreds of thousands of dollars from his long career in politics, despite claiming to be a “political outsider” on the campaign trail.
- During Lahn’s “long career as a political operative … he earned at least $231,505 as a campaign staffer and congressional aide. This includes working for lawmakers in Montana and Colorado,” and for multiple members of Congress.
- Lahn spent years working at the highest levels of politics and was “hired to manage Montana Republican Steve Daines’ 2012 campaign for the U.S. House … Lahn then spent eight months as Daines’ state director.”
As American Journal News reports, Lahn even told Ashley Hinson he wanted to run for her seat in Congress — despite lying and claiming “the only thing I’d ever want to run for was governor.” Lahn has worked in politics since 2009, and “has come under fire in the Iowa governor’s race for living in Kansas … His political background further undermines his claims of being a lifelong Iowan.”
Read more on Zach Lahn’s “long career as a political operative” here.
📖 What Iowans are reading: “Following the arduous primary … the Lahn campaign appeared to be regrouping”
This week, the Des Moines Register noted that “following the arduous primary … the Lahn campaign appeared to be regrouping” instead of campaigning. While Zach Lahn kicks off the general election by fighting with Iowans on social media and skipping a candidate forum in Coralville, voters are learning more and more about him living in Kansas, not in Iowa.
The Gazette reported that “Lahn and his family have kept their home in Kansas” over the course of his campaign. Lahn even admitted he doesn’t live in Iowa, telling the paper that “if elected governor he and his family would move to and live in Iowa full-time.”
While Lahn hides from the campaign trail, here’s what Iowans are reading about him:
- The Gazette: “Throughout Lahn’s campaign for Iowa governor, which launched last November, Lahn and his family have kept their home in Kansas … Lahn, who has used his private plane to fly back and forth between Kansas and Iowa while campaigning, has said if elected governor he and his family would move to and live in Iowa.”
- Des Moines Register: “Following the arduous primary, the Lahn campaign began shifting into general election mode — a place where Sand, who ran unopposed, has long been. Immediately after the election, while the Lahn campaign appeared to be regrouping, Sand attended public events, challenged Lahn to a series of debates, began airing attack ads and rolled out the dates for his next 100-stop town hall tour.”
- MS NOW: “None of his political work appears on the biographical timeline on his campaign’s website … He invested in a men’s sex health company and real estate and reportedly spent most of his time in Kansas, a fact that critics have used to label Lahn a carpetbagger.”
🍰 Zach Lahn’s let them eat cake moment: Lahn told Iowa farmers tariffs “worked as intended”
As Iowans see prices skyrocket on everything from gas to groceries, Zach Lahn told Iowa farmers that cost-raising tariffs “worked as intended.”
Chaotic tariffs have pushed Iowa’s agriculture industry to the brink of another farm crisis, as farmers are already struggling under the weight of a four-year downturn and filing for bankruptcy at the highest rate in the nation. Tariffs have also destroyed farmers’ access to export markets and cost Iowans $566 million in 2025 alone, as farmers “face some of their toughest times since [the] 1980s crisis.”
Lahn has a well-documented history of making out-of-touch comments dismissing the pain Iowa farmers are feeling:
- Lahn claimed tariffs don’t raise costs, even though tariffs cost the average household more than $1,700, inflation has hit a three-year high, and Iowans are paying higher prices on everything from groceries to medicine.
- Lahn lectured Iowa farmers cut off from export markets, telling them to “diversify crops and livestock” instead of selling their goods overseas.
- Lahn downplayed farmers struggling with high input costs, saying “the tariffs are not the issue.”
🐱 Kim Reyolds copycat: Iowa’s education ranking tanks, but Zach Lahn wants to take private school vouchers even further
This week, the Des Moines Register reported that Iowa’s education ranking has fallen to the bottom half of states — coming in at 27th place — for the first time in history. Meanwhile, Zach Lahn has continued to support Kim Reynolds’ unaccountable private school voucher program that drives up costs and rips away funding from the vast majority of Iowa’s students, teachers, and parents to foot the bill for wealthy families, hitting rural schools the hardest.
- Researchers cited “a lack of school resources” and funding for Iowa’s decline, but Lahn has claimed the state “is spending too much money on education.”
- Public school funding has fallen behind inflation, nearly all of Iowa’s private schools are now funded by taxpayer dollars, and vouchers are projected to cost Iowa taxpayers $350 million.
- Despite that, Lahn has said “I am all for ESAs” and has left the door open to even deeper cuts and further attacks on Iowa’s public schools.
Lahn also founded an unaccredited school in Kansas that operated without oversight — raising serious questions about his commitment to protecting Iowa’s public schools. Iowa Starting Line reported that Lahn’s school “did not seek accreditation through the Kansas Department of Education, meaning it was not required to follow state regulations, administer state tests, or hire licensed teachers.”
📲 Tweet of the week:
That’s a wrap for this edition of Frequent Flyer Fridays. Thanks for reading, we’ll see you next week.