TAMA — In his first public campaign event of the general election cycle since winning his party’s nomination a month ago, Republican gubernatorial candidate Zach Lahn of Belle Plaine took to the stage inside the Tama Civic Center to deliver a speech and host a meet and greet on Friday morning,

Lahn, who pulled an upset in the June 2 Republican primary by defeating Trump endorsed Congressman Randy Feenstra, was the last candidate to join the primary, launching his campaign from the steps of his family farm in Belle Plaine.

Catherine Leipold, chair of the Tama County Republican Central Committee, welcomed attendees and thanked members of the Poweshiek and Black Hawk County Republican central committees for helping with the event.

After a prayer led by County Supervisor David Turner and the Pledge of Allegiance, Leipold then introduced Derek Wulf, a two term representative in Iowa House from District 76, which includes northeastern Tama County. Wulf was selected in mid-June to serve as the lieutenant governor nominee alongside Lahn.

“I can’t express how much of an honor and a privilege it is to be standing up here. When the campaign team asked I said, let’s start right here in Tama County. This has been right on the verge of the district that I have served over the last four years,” Wulf said.

Wulf then shared his introduction to Lahn.

“When I met Zach Lahn, about last November, last fall, we sat down and had a conversation. I was just amazed by how much we overlapped on the issues and how we thought we could address the issues that Iowans are facing,” Wulf said.

Wasting no time, Wulf attacked Democratic nominee for Governor Rob Sand during his remarks.

“When I looked at the opponent, Rob Sand, he’s trying to be something that Iowans are not. And I think the reality that we need to face is that he’s telling a lot of lies, and Iowans are going to see through it quickly,” he said.

After greeting the crowd, Lahn began touting his momentum leading to his primary victory before shifting to a jab at Sand, the current state auditor.

“We started a movement that wasn’t about me. It was never about me. It was about a message. It was about issues, and we’re going to carry that on into this general election no matter how much my opponent wants to make this about personal attacks. We’re going to talk about issues where we go meet the voters of Iowa, because we believe that’s what we deserve,” he said.

Lahn dove into policy during his remarks, focusing on four key issues “to restore the culture and the heritage of our state over the long term.”

Those cornerstones are keeping young people in Iowa, strengthening family farms, improving education and addressing water quality and cancer concerns.

On agriculture, Lahn said Iowa has lost over 10,000 family farms over the past two decades and argued that large agricultural companies have too much control over the market. He said he would support antitrust action against large agricultural companies if elected.

Lahn voiced his support for education savings accounts (ESAs), adding that the governor of Iowa must be “the number one advocate for public school kids in the state.”

After explaining the concept of “mastery based learning” to offset standardized testing, Lahn described how he viewed the landscape of education changing in the state.

“We will see our public education rankings start to rise, and we will see our private schools also have to make their programs better, because they now have good competition to go against.”

On the topic of cancer, Lahn talked about his father, who developed non-hodgkin’s lymphoma after 20 years of working in agriculture, citing the issue as personal and having touched everyone in attendance.

“For a very long time, we have been lied to about the safety of products by large agricultural companies to protect their bottom line. And they need to be held accountable, because they’re lying to our farmers, and lying to our citizens, and they’re continuing to print money all while we’re getting sicker. The same could be said about the pharmaceutical industry,” he said.

Lahn voiced his support for sustainable farming practices that keep burdens off of farmers.

“We have to be willing to have these hard conversations. We have to be willing to address the water quality crisis in our state and work alongside our farmers to help them with new methods that do not cost them more money to help them do the things that they would like to do in the first place anyways. Saturated buffers up near Ames took off 100% of the nitrate load coming off of tile lines,” he said.

In total Lahn spoke for just over half an hour before engaging in a meet and greet open to around 100 attendees. Due to cited time concerns, no press questions were taken.