A relatively unknown farmer who openly touted his ties to the Make America Healthy Again movement upset President Donald Trump’s endorsed candidate in Iowa’s GOP gubernatorial primary Tuesday.
Father of seven Zach Lahn, running an insurgent campaign endorsed by Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Action and Turning Point Action, narrowly defeated Trump-backed Republican Iowa Rep. Randy Feenstra to win his party’s nomination in the open race to succeed retiring Republican Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds. Lahn received 37.79% of the vote to Feenstra’s 37.01% — a difference of under 2,000 votes — in the five-candidate GOP field, The Associated Press reported with over 95% of ballots counted.
Lahn will face off against Democratic Iowa Auditor Rob Sand, who ran unopposed for his party’s nomination, in what is expected to be a close November general election. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates the open Iowa gubernatorial race as a “Toss Up,” despite the fact that Trump carried the state by 13 percentage points in 2024. Sand was the only Iowa Democratic candidate to win statewide in 2022.
“How about this? We the people!” Lahn said during his victory speech. “I don’t have to tell you this but nobody thought that this could be done. We were outspent, opposed by the establishment, told to wait our turn.”
“Well, tonight the people of Iowa had something to say about that. That we’re not going to wait anymore!” he emphasized.
We did it!!!
Thank you IOWA!
IOWA FIRST!
— Zach Lahn (@ZachLahn) June 3, 2026
The farmer and businessman also alluded to his support for the MAHA-aligned policies in his election night remarks.
“Iowa has the fastest-growing cancer rate in the world. We all know something is terribly wrong. But too many politicians from Washington, D.C., to Des Moines have had their heads stuck in the sand while Big Ag and Big Pharma have printed money,” he said. “This will not go on when I’m governor.”
“Iowans are going to funerals for people dying at 60 whose parents lived to be 80. We are losing the wisdom of a generation. We have to use every resource we have to solve this,” Lahn continued. “We have to find out what Big Ag and Big Pharma knew about the safety of their products and when they knew it. And we need to direct our great state universities to use every resource at their disposal to fight this cancer epidemic and end it.”
During his underdog primary bid, the candidate and his supporters railed against Feenstra highlighting his ties to the pharmaceutical industry, The Washington Post reported.
Alex Clark, a MAHA podcaster who works for Turning Point USA (TPUSA), strongly supported Lahn over Feenstra, calling the latter a “BAYER ENDORSED CANDIDATE” in a Friday X post responding to Trump’s endorsement of the congressman. “RUN DON’T WALK. VOTE LAHN!!!!!” she added in the post.
TPUSA President Erika Kirk congratulated Lahn on his primary victory in an X post Tuesday,
Congratulations to Zach Lahn on his victory! He will be a great Governor for all Iowans.
Iowa is one of the most important states in the nation. Proud of our team @TPAction and the work ahead to deliver more MAGA and MAHA wins for the President. https://t.co/uHb2YMPeHa
— Erika Kirk (@MrsErikaKirk) June 3, 2026
“Congratulations to Zach Lahn on his victory! He will be a great Governor for all Iowans. Iowa is one of the most important states in the nation,” Kirk wrote in her post. “Proud of our team @TPAction and the work ahead to deliver more MAGA and MAHA wins for the President.”
Iowa is notably the No. 1 producer of corn and No. 2 producer of soy among U.S. states. These crops are used to make products that are heavily scrutinized by the MAHA movement such as high fructose corn syrup and seed oils.
In his Truth Social endorsement of Feenstra, Trump called him “MAGA all the way,” adding that he “has delivered strong results for the Hawkeye State” during his career in public office.
Feenstra has represented a heavily Republican northwestern Iowa-based House district for three terms and declined to run for a fourth, instead seeking the governor’s mansion.
“Lahn has been a steadfast champion of personal health freedom, consistently standing against government and corporate intrusion into individual medical decisions. As a defender of liberty and family autonomy, he is committed to making Iowa a national leader in medical freedom,” MAHA Action said in its December 2o25 endorsement of the outsider.
Lahn sat down with Tucker Carlson for an hour-and-a-half-long interview posted on YouTube in February.
During the discussion, Lahn and Carlson spoke about Iowa’s skyrocketing cancer rates, globalism, the proliferation of artificial intelligence, rising land prices and alleged connections between pesticides and Parkinson’s disease, among other issues.
“If you’re exposed to paraquat your chance of Parkinson’s doubles,” Lahn told Carlson during the interview, referring to a chemical herbicide widely used in commercial agriculture. “If you go on X and you type in, and you just look at paraquat, you’ll find stories of farmers who just will not use it anymore. They’ll tell stories of spraying it and immediately … that day getting uncontrollable bloody noses. It’s a very, very harsh product.”
Trump’s other endorsed statewide candidate in Iowa easily won her primary race Tuesday. Republican Iowa Rep. Ashley Hinson defeated former state Sen. Jim Carlin in the open GOP primary for the U.S. Senate by nearly a 3-to-1 margin, according to the AP.
Hinson is now set to face Iowa state Rep. Josh Turek in the November general election to succeed retiring incumbent Republican Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst. Cook Political Report has rated the race “Lean R.”
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