Longtime Kansan Zach Lahn’s Record is Under Fire Across Iowa
DES MOINES – From Storm Lake to Cedar Rapids, longtime political observers across Iowa are putting career political operative and Kansas carpetbagger Zach Lahn on blast for hiding from the campaign trail, supporting unaccountable private school vouchers, and opposing Medicaid expansion.
This comes after the Des Moines Register editorial board declined to endorse Lahn in the Republican gubernatorial primary, citing “significant” reservations with his campaign. The editorial board slammed Lahn’s “discouragingly insular views” on education and health care, adding that “his other stances would take Iowa in the wrong direction.”
What Iowans are reading about why Zach Lahn is wrong for Iowa:
Storm Lake Times Pilot’s Art Cullen: Editorials: Sand confronts reality
- Too bad that Republican Zach Lahn dodged a forum last Thursday with Iowa City-Cedar Rapids business leaders to talk mundane things like budgets and taxes with his Democratic opponent for governor, Rob Sand. Lahn reportedly begged off because it was too soon after the primary election.
- Bloated spending and slashing income taxes resulted in a $1.3 billion deficit this year. It will be as bad, probably worse, next year as the state economy has been battered by Trump’s trade wars and bombing war on Iran (with no real end in sight). Gov. Kim Reynolds used savings accounts to cover the deficits and paper over the real cost of private-school vouchers and flattening the income tax at 3.8%. Within a couple years, those savings accounts fed by Covid funds will have been spent dry.
- Lahn would have to defend subsidizing wealthy people from West Des Moines so their kids can go to Dowling or Des Moines Christian and they won’t have to sell the jet ski. Lahn’s home schooling company benefits from vouchers.
- Lahn needs to step up and contribute to the conversation … Lahn wants the vouchers to carry on. Where do you come up with about $400 million overnight?
- The next governor must come to grips with how to fund schools and get the roads in decent shape. Lahn is absent from the discussion.
The Gazette’s Todd Dorman: Zach Lahn couldn’t stop Montana Medicaid expansion
- Zach Lahn is running for governor of Iowa claiming he is an “outsider.” This assertion has been disputed by his Democratic opponent, for good reason.
- Lahn’s mission in Big Sky country was to hunt down Obamacare! Specifically, the law’s invitation for states to expand Medicaid.
- “We are deeply disappointed in the legislature’s decision tonight to expand Medicaid …,” Lahn said in a statement.
- He moved to Kansas, founded a private school in 2018, voted in Kansas elections in 2018, 2020 and in an August 2022 primary, according to the Kansas Reflector. He registered to vote in Iowa in October 2024, just in time to be eligible to run for governor in 2026.
- Thanks to deep cuts in federal spending on Medicaid — a program funded with federal and state bucks — Iowa stands to lose $9 billion in funding over the next 10 years. That could cost 68,000 Iowans their health coverage. People could die. But, remember, we’re all going to die.
- So the next governor is going to face tough decisions on the future of Medicaid. Lahn has already shown us in Montana that he cares very little for people going without health insurance. Painful cuts are likely.
- Second, if you’re tired of watching Iowa Republicans embrace legislation cooked up in conservative think tanks and bill mills or imported from other red states, Lahn will be a disappointment. He is well connected to the web of conservative groups attempting to push state-level policy to the right. Hell, he worked in that world.
- So Lahn was an outsider, then became an insider, and now he’s trying to be an outsider again. If he wins, Terrace Hill is going to need a revolving door.
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