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 continued hiding from Iowans as political observers put his record on blast and another race-rater upgraded the race to “toss up.” The Dobbs anniversary put a spotlight on how Lahn is running to restrict reproductive freedoms, and his running mate came under renewed scrutiny for having ties to big pesticide companies following the SCOTUS decision.
Let’s get into it.
📍 Where was Kansas carpetbagger Zach Lahn this week? Hiding from Iowans and going three weeks without holding a single public event — all while deleting the Events page off his website.
Pants on fire: Wall Street Journal exposes Lahn as a carpetbagger, millionaire, and political operative
New reporting from The Wall Street Journal exposed career political operative and Kansas carpetbagger Zach Lahn for claiming to be a political outsider despite “work[ing] in politics for part of a decade.” Lahn “barely met the state’s two-year residency requirement for gubernatorial candidates,” as “records show he voted in Kansas in 2018, 2020 and 2022.”
Lahn is now struggling to earn trust and support from Iowa farmers — despite him introducing himself as a farmer on the campaign trail:
- As The Wall Street Journal reports, “few believe Lahn will actually” follow through on his campaign promises.
- Iowa Corn Growers Association president Mark Mueller echoed that skepticism, saying “farmers don’t love everything about Lahn … I’m not hearing vast support from the farming community for Lahn.”
Read more from The Wall Street Journal here.
We’ve got the receipts: Lahn hasn’t held a public event in weeks, deleted the Events page from his website
It’s now been over three weeks since the primary election, and Zach Lahn has yet to hold a single public event, and even deleted the Events page from his website. Instead of showing up for Iowans, Lahn is hiding and refusing to answer simple questions about where he lives and how much time he spends in Iowa.
Lahn was quick to call out his opponent Randy Feenstra for hiding from the campaign trail during the gubernatorial primary — saying that showing up and being present is “what the voters of Iowa deserve.” Now, Lahn is taking a page out of Feenstra’s failed no-show playbook by refusing to make public appearances.
The Des Moines Register reported that Lahn was unprepared for the general election and “appeared to be regrouping” instead of campaigning. Lahn skipped a candidate forum and spent time fighting with Iowans on Twitter, but made time to praise Kim Reynolds and pledge to continue her failed legacy.
📞 Zach Lahn, call your office: Ripping away reproductive freedom and protecting pesticides in the spotlight
The four-year anniversary of the Dobbs decision put a spotlight on how Zach Lahn is running to rip away Iowans’ reproductive freedoms. Lahn’s dangerous record includes opposing IVF and fertility treatments, and he wants to go even further than Kim Reynolds’ ban on abortion before most women even know they’re pregnant — which is already one of the most extreme in the country.
A reminder of Zach Lahn’s extreme record on reproductive freedom:
- Lahn wants to go even further than Reynolds on ripping away reproductive freedoms, saying “we could do more to protect life.”
- Lahn supports an abortion ban from conception without exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother, which would put access to birth control and IVF in jeopardy.
- Lahn bragged about being “banned for life” from a fertility clinic and said his opposition to abortion extends to IVF and other fertility treatments.
- Lahn opposed allowing Iowans to obtain medication abortion by mail.
- Lahn attended the Iowa March for Life, campaigning with a group that wants to ban abortion outright and believes that “IVF violates human dignity.”
- Lahn spent years as a career political operative working to elect extreme anti-abortion lawmakers.
Also this week, the Supreme Court handed chemical companies a major win by limiting lawsuits against cancer-causing chemicals, putting Lahn’s running mate state Rep. Derek Wulf under renewed scrutiny for having close ties to big pesticide companies and special interests.
- During his time in the state legislature, Wulf supported “a bill that would give broad legal immunity to pesticide and herbicide manufacturers” and accepted gifts from the pesticide lobby.
- Bleeding Heartland reported that “in and around the legislature, Wulf was viewed as an advocate for the [immunity] bill.” Wulf never publicly disputed that claim — and when a pesticide lobby newspaper ad thanked him for “advocating for this crucial legislation,” he didn’t object.
- As Lahn’s campaign scrambles to defend Wulf’s ties to special interests, those connections are more proof his administration would be a continuation of the last decade of failed one party rule under Kim Reynolds.
All eyes on the Hawkeye state: Inside Elections becomes the third race rater to shift race to “toss-up”
This week, the nonpartisan Inside Elections shifted the Iowa governor’s race to a “toss-up,” citing Zach Lahn’s “vulnerabilities surrounding his current ties to Iowa.”
- Inside Elections: “As the agriculture economy struggles with the effects of Trump’s tariffs and uncertainty in the Middle East, voters in Iowa seem interested in making a change. Lahn is untested and has some vulnerabilities surrounding his current ties to Iowa.”
Inside Elections is the third independent race-rater to move the race to toss-up after Cook Political Report and Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball made the same call — all in the span of two months. This new rating follows National Journal naming the Iowa governor’s race the second-best pickup opportunity for Democrats in 2026.
What Iowans are reading: Longtime Kansan Zach Lahn’s record is under fire across Iowa
From Storm Lake to Cedar Rapids, longtime political observers are putting 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: “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 … 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: “Lahn’s mission in Big Sky country was to hunt down Obamacare! Specifically, the law’s invitation for states to expand Medicaid … 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.”
📲 Tweet of the week:
That’s a wrap for this edition of Frequent Flyer Fridays. Thanks for reading, we’ll see you next week.