Zach Lahn just changed the Iowa GOP playbook

In the biggest upset of this primary cycle so far, businessman and farmer Zach Lahn defeated four other candidates in the Iowa Republican gubernatorial primary, including U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra, who received President Trump’s late endorsement.

Lahn won by less than one percentage point and fewer than 1,700 votes out of nearly 215,000 cast. He fused together evangelicals, MAHA voters, a Turning Point USA endorsement, and late encouragement from yours truly for Iowa Republicans to vote strategically against Feenstra, who ran the most cynical campaign I have ever seen.

Even when Trump endorsed against him, Lahn was still the candidate saying the most Trumpian things to the base. That was all that mattered.

Back in February, Brent Buchanan, one of the best pollsters of the 2024 cycle, published research arguing that Republicans’ secret weapon for the 2026 midterms could be a fusion of MAHA messaging with traditional conservative themes. He added that “most Republican candidates are too cautious to grab it.”

Enter Lahn.

His issue-driven success may signal that the personality-driven retail politics that long defined Iowa, thanks to its first-in-the-nation presidential caucus status, is fading.

When I endorsed Adam Steen early in this gubernatorial primary, I had never met Lahn. I had never even heard of him. I chose Steen because he fit the kind of candidate Iowa Republicans have traditionally rewarded: high integrity, strong character, serious faith, and real governing experience.

Steen had essentially been the chief operating officer of Iowa for the past five years. He seemed like one of us during Republican Kim Reynolds’ popular and successful governorship. That level of trust and connectivity is what Iowa conservatives have long craved, and it helps explain why Pat Robertson, Mike Huckabee, and Rick Santorum found success here over the years.

In almost any earlier political era, Steen probably would have been where Lahn is now.

But the electorate has changed. Many evangelicals overlooked Trump’s past because they liked where he stood on the issues. They cared less about the résumé of the salesman than the sales pitch in front of them. In the final month of the primary, more Iowa voters answered the question “Do you know what time it is?” with one name: Zach Lahn.

Even when Trump endorsed against him, Lahn was still the candidate saying the most Trumpian things to the base. That was all that mattered.

Issues, not background.

That is likely where Republican politics will stay as the Fox News generation fades and the GOP gets younger. Younger Republicans include more people from broken homes, more people who have gone through divorce, more people who came to faith later in life, and more voters carrying baggage that no longer fits the old Pleasant Valley Sunday model.

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Scott Olson/Getty Images

They are not looking for perfect biographies. They want results.

That hunger for results was strong enough to overcome Trump’s 11th-hour endorsement of Feenstra.

And yes, Trump’s endorsement helped. The president took a candidate whose negatives had climbed 20 points in the final three months and, in less than four days, gave him at least a 10-point bump without major media assistance. That should have finished Lahn.

But Iowa Republicans decided, with some irony, that the candidate Trump endorsed could not be trusted on Trump’s own issues as much as the candidate Trump opposed.

To be honest, the risk I took by supporting Lahn in the campaign’s final days had nothing to do with confidence in how that dynamic would play out. But here we are. For the sake of the state where my children are raising my grandchildren, I am grateful it ended this way.

Lahn had enough independent wealth to make himself visible and viable, no matter when or how Trump weighed in. With the right message on the right issues, he found the secret sauce.

So to Iowa Democrats and their Trojan horse candidate Rob Sand, here is our message: Now we fight.

All aboard the Lahn train.