Zach Lahn Enters Final Two Months of Campaign Still on Defense
DES MOINES – With just two months to go until Election Day, Kansas carpetbagger and career political operative Zach Lahn is entering the final stretch of the race deeply damaged from his inability to answer for his frequent trips from Kansas and weighed down by the lies he’s told Iowans. Iowans have learned Lahn lied about where he lives, is a career political insider who spent years working for special interests, and is running to continue Kim Reynolds’ failed legacy.
Here’s what Iowans know about Zach Lahn:
Lahn has lied to Iowans about where he lives:
Lahn was exposed for spending more time in Kansas than Iowa, still holds a job in Kansas as president of a private school, and said he would only “move to and live in Iowa” if elected.
- Lahn “voted in Kansas in 2018, 2020 and 2022,” only registered to vote in Iowa right before the deadline to run for governor, and took out a primary mortgage on his Kansas home in 2024 — despite claiming to be a full time Iowa resident since 2023.
- Lahn “regularly flies in and out of Wichita to attend” campaign events in Iowa, including the day he submitted his nomination papers at the Capitol, and refused to say whether he expects Iowa taxpayers to bankroll his commute home to Kansas as governor.
This comes as polling from Emerson College shows that 76% of Iowans say it’s important that a candidate has lived in Iowa for most of their adult life, and 41% say it’s very important.
Lahn lied about his career as a political operative working for special interests:
Lahn, “at his core, is an all-star, major league political operative.” Despite lying and claiming to be an outsider to politics, he’s actually worked in politics since 2009.
- Lahn spent “years on the campaign trail” as an out-of-state operative for D.C. politicians and got his “big break” working for corporate polluters and against Medicaid expansion in Montana.
- Lahn raised money for a group that “campaign[ed] for Republican candidates in Iowa who were friendly to Big Ag and corporate interests” and “participates in the same monopolistic, polluting practices Lahn now rails against.”
Lahn is running to continue Kim Reynolds’ failed legacy:
Lahn has “cast himself as the heir” to Kim Reynolds, the most unpopular governor in the country for over two years in a row. He has embraced her failed status quo that’s made Iowa the number one state for new cancer growth, the state with the second highest number of farm bankruptcies, and left public schools underfunded.
- Lahn has attacked public schools, supports Kim Reynolds’ unaccountable private school voucher scheme, and wants to expand the school voucher program to include homeschooling — leaving the door open to even more public school funding cuts.
- Lahn has pledged to continue Kim Reynolds’ privatized Medicaid disaster, dismissed the pain that Iowans are feeling from Medicaid cuts, and doesn’t have a plan to address Iowa’s water quality crisis and high cancer rates. He even pledged to ban mRNA vaccines in Iowa, a life-saving cancer treatment, and cheered on DOGE cuts to cancer research.
- Lahn has completely dismissed the cost of living crisis and defended tariffs that are hiking costs on Iowa families and farmers. He’s running to continue Reynolds’ economic failures, like making Iowa the state with the second highest number of farm bankruptcies and landing Iowa with a $1.4 billion budget deficit to fund tax breaks for powerful insiders and special interests.
From Iowa Democratic Party spokesperson Terra Hernandez:
“Two months out from Election Day, alarm bells should be going off for Kansas carpetbagger and career political operative Zach Lahn. He has no answer for why he spends more time in Kansas than Iowa, and he’s not only embraced Kim Reynolds’ failed legacy, but wants to take it further. Iowans are fed up with the last decade of failed one-party rule and want a full-time governor who will put them first — that’s why they’ll send Lahn packing back to Kansas in November.”
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