BREAKING: Zach Lahn Had His 2024 Ballot Mailed To Kansas
Lahn lied about “making the full move back to [Iowa] in 2023”
DES MOINES – A bombshell investigation from the New York Times into carpetbagger and career political operative Zach Lahn’s voting record reveals that he voted in Iowa’s 2024 general election after “he requested that his ballot be mailed to him — in Kansas.” Lahn registered to vote in Iowa on October 17, 2024, which was “just in time to qualify to run for office in 2026.”
Lahn has spent his entire campaign lying about living in Kansas, and voted in Kansas in 2018, 2020, and 2022. He was recently caught hiding his flights to Kansas while skipping campaign events in Iowa.
In addition to lying about where he lives, the New York Times also caught Lahn lying about being a political outsider. Lahn claimed his work running the Wonder School in Kansas was a “passion project” and said the “school never paid me anything,” but records show he made over $20,000 a month — roughly $250,000 a year — for “consulting services.”
From Iowa Democratic Party spokesperson Terra Hernandez:
“Zach Lahn has spent this entire campaign lying about living in Kansas because he knows it’s completely disqualifying, and his own voting records prove it. Iowans can’t trust a word Lahn says because he will lie about anything and everything to get elected, and in one week, they will send him back to Kansas.”
Read more from the New York Times here, or key points below:
- In 2014, Mr. Lahn was hired to lead the Montana chapter of [a] conservative advocacy group … He held the post for about a year and then served as a fund-raiser for the organization into 2016.
- In 2017, Mr. Lahn started working for the [Wonder] school, which opened in 2018.
- Mr. Lahn and the future Annie Lahn applied for a marriage license 11 days after his divorce was finalized, in June 2020, court records show.
- Mr. Lahn’s financial arrangement with the school was unusual.
- From 2017 to 2024, he worked 50 hours per week for Wonder, according to Internal Revenue Service records. The records say he was never paid.
- “The school was a passion project, 100 percent,” Mr. Lahn said in an interview with The New York Times, adding that the “school never paid me anything.”
- He was, however, being paid at the time … In 2019, his monthly billings were $20,883, which would add up to an annual salary approaching $250,000. One internal email refers to his compensation as “salary.”
- A person with knowledge of the [divorce] settlement, who was granted anonymity to discuss a private agreement, said that Annie received a sum in the eight-figure range.
- In the years since marrying Annie, Mr. Lahn’s investment activity surged, mostly through limited liability companies, public records show.
- In 2021, he bought a “ski-in, ski-out” lot at the base of a mountain in Whitefish, Mont., valued at $1.5 million, and he bought and sold a home in the same resort valued at $4.5 million. He and Annie bought and sold a three-bedroom home near their farm. He also bought a 1930s-era movie theater in Belle Plaine, Iowa, for $250,000 in 2023 and roughly 435 acres in surrounding Benton County.
- In 2021, one of Mr. Lahn’s limited liability companies bought a $1 million stake in FirmTech Inc., a men’s sexual health company that makes penis rings promising longer erections and more intense orgasms. At one point, the company sought to trademark hats that read, “Make America Firm Again.”
- Mr. Lahn bristled at the suggestion that his wife’s divorce settlement had fueled his business career or contributed to the $2.5 million he lent his campaign.
- Mr. Lahn’s residency has emerged as one of the most fraught issues of the race, with Mr. Sand repeatedly accusing him of being a “Kansas carpetbagger.”
- The Lahns also own a 26-acre Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired estate appraised at $1.8 million — complete with an indoor pool and a private lake — just north of Wichita, Kan.
- Mr. Sand has aired a pointed TV ad that calls him an “Iowa public school dad.”
- Mr. Sand responded: “This is not about why you’re in Kansas. This is about the fact that you’re not in Iowa.”
- Mr. Lahn voted in Iowa years ago but voted in Kansas in 2018, 2020 and 2022. He re-registered in Iowa in October 2024 — just in time to qualify to run for office in 2026.
- Mr. Lahn cast an Iowa ballot in the 2024 general election. But voting records that have not previously been reported show he requested that his ballot be mailed to him — in Kansas.
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