For the moment, Democrat Rob Sand is the favorite to become Iowa’s next governor.
That’s what’s keeping some top Iowa Republicans awake at night. Then they’re getting up on the wrong side of the bed. Worry is making some surly. Democratic wins will bring the end of freedom, they claim.
And as Jimmy Buffett could have told them, it’s their own damn fault.
U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra, Republicans’ first front-runner, delayed his entry into the fray, freezing the GOP race. Sand, the state auditor, held town halls all over Iowa and met no Republican resistance. Zach Lahn (Who?) a business guy who owns a farm, narrowly won the primary, but was labeled as the man from Kansas before he could give his victory speech. His running mate is accused of fraud by creditors.
But Sand could still lose.
A wide gap in voter registrations favors the Iowa GOP. Republicans have run the joint for a decade. Democrats haven’t won a big race since the Obama administration. As we saw in 2002, so-called blue waves in the rest of the country can miss Iowa completely. A smattering of surveys suggest Lahn still is well within striking difference.
President Donald Trump might order the U.S. Postal Service to shred all absentee ballots from registered Democrats, send in troops or threaten to rename the state “East Nebraska” if Sand is elected. Measles could break out.
But the Golden Dome of Wisdom might go from bright red to a purplish Magenta, like a tube of lustrous lipstick.
Sand’s campaign to end 20 years of Democratic gubernatorial futility has been well-executed, on message and pitch perfect. In about 30 years of writing about state politics, I’ve seen few campaigns that measure up.
That doesn’t mean Sand has been right on every issue, has flawless plans and has never stumbled, gotten lucky or given a meandering answer to a tough question. But his strategery has given him a good chance of winning.
For most of 2025, Sand held dozens of town hall meetings. He presented himself to voters as a pragmatic problem-solver who will work with anyone who has good ideas, including Republicans. He disdains the trench warfare of red-blue politics and criticizes an electoral system requiring candidates to “pick their poison.” and run as Democrats or Republicans. He fielded voters’ questions.
He talks about targeting waste as state auditor and fighting corruption as a prosecutor in the attorney general’s office. He has remained keenly focused on big issues — Iowa’s high cancer rate, the rising cost of living and reviving our public schools. Sand also is targeting shady shenanigans benefiting water polluters, health insurers and government fraudsters. Under Sand, privatized Medicaid would end.
Lahn talks tough about taking on corporate agriculture and cleaning up water. Sand has a detailed plan. Is it aggressive enough? I say no, but I’m hardly the average voter.
His campaign says 20,000 Iowans have attended town halls. Sand asks attendees to sing the first verse of “God Bless America.” If you haven’t been there, it sounds cringey. But if you’ve been there, it’s surprisingly affecting and effective.
Even more surprising is that as Sand held town halls last year, Republicans didn’t lay a glove on him. Consequently, they allowed Sand to define himself to persuadable voters who attended the meetings, saw coverage in local newspapers or TV or heard about them from friends or family. For the GOP, it was political malpractice.
That’s a big reason why Republicans are now having a hard time claiming Sand is a secret radical, an out-of-touch “billionaire” and a big old liar pants. The labels just won’t stick. Yes, his wife’s wealthy family has given millions of dollars to Sand’s campaign, but he’s also raised unprecedented sums on his own from tens of thousands of Iowans. Town halls continue.
“When I asked Mr. Sand how he would overcome Republican attacks, he shrugged. ‘I go everywhere and talk to everybody,’” Ben Rhodes wrote in a New York Times opinion piece last month.
In May, the Des Moines Register first reported that Lahn flies frequently in his private plane to Kansas, where he maintains a home and started a private school, to see his kids. Between October 2025 and May, flight logs showed Lahn’s plane logged 37 flights to Wichita. Good band name.
Lahn insists he is a full-time Iowan living on his family’s farm near Belle Plaine, although he did not register to vote here until 2024, just clearing a deadline allowing him to run for governor. He said his family situation would change if he’s elected.
“No, we've already had discussions about this and how that would work,” he told the Register. “But if I'm elected governor, it would be a different arrangement, and we’d work it out. Because, you know, we'd be in Iowa as much as humanly possible.”
“Humanly possible” was the utterance that launched a thousand attack ads. Before Lahn could introduce himself to more Iowans, Sand’s campaign was telling them their state needs a full-time governor, not some guy who spends considerable time in Kansas. Humanly possible isn’t good enough.
So, faster than he can fly, Lahn became the carpetbagger from Kansas who once worked as a political operative for the billionaire Koch brothers. Stop any average Joe or Jane and ask them who Zach Lahn is, it’s now more likely they’ll say, “Oh yeah, that’s the guy from Kansas running for governor.”
Sand managed to define himself and his opponent. Neat trick.
CNN also took notice.
“He’s a bow-hunting, scripture-quoting, plaid-shirt wearing father of two …,” CNN’s Jeff Zeleny reported. “Whether it’s post-partisan, pragmatic or both, he stands out as a rare candidate in a noisy political season seeking to lower the temperature in his quest to appeal to Democrats, independents and Republicans alike.”
Lahn, who wants to target “Marxists” who hate America in our public schools, scrap school vaccine requirements and eliminate the income tax, is trying to raise the temperature. His account on X features a constant airing of grievances.
In August, Lahn’s posts accused Sand of planting false stories in the media, hiding his wealth, politicizing his volunteer work in Cedar Rapids after the derecho and supporting government benefits for illegal immigrants, late-term abortion, gun control and allowing books on “transgenderism” in elementary schools. It’s a mixture of false claims and threadbare Republican attacks.
“Rob thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room, but he’s running a campaign of shallow lies staffed by amateurs. Iowans see through it,” Lahn posted on Aug. 1.
Those “amateurs” have put Sand on the brink of winning. That must be frustrating. Republican control of Iowa is seeping away, like sand through an hour glass. For the moment, at least.