The Marshall County Pachyderm Herd was treated to a special twofer at the Central Iowa Fairgrounds on Friday as Lt. Gov. nominee and current State Rep. Derek Wulf (R-Hudson) and District 4 U.S. House candidate Chris McGowan both addressed the local GOP group under the Big Top Tent while the Marshall County Cattlemen served hamburgers nearby.

Wulf, a fourth-generation farmer, currently represents District 76 in the Iowa House, which includes southern Black Hawk and northern Tama counties, and he has held his seat since 2023. He serves as the chair of the House Agriculture Committee and highlighted his work on right to repair legislation, the Iowa Farm Bill, water quality improvements and eminent domain reform.

He first met the man who is now his running mate, businessman and farmer Zach Lahn of Belle Plaine, at a cafe last fall and said he quickly asked him “hard questions” about the ag economy, meatpacking monopolies, water quality and cancer rates.

“He started answering these questions, and I thought ‘Wow. This aligns a lot with not only what I believe but also bills I’ve tried to run.’ We talked a lot about keeping our children in Iowa. What do we have to do to keep our young people here in the communities so that they’re also helping our communities thrive and our Main Streets thrive?” Wulf asked.

He then touted a bill he proposed to place a moratorium on the state’s four largest counties by population receiving Iowa Economic Development Authority (IEDA) incentives, which stalled in the Senate, but Wulf said it “sent a message” that rural Iowa must remain a top priority.

When first approached by Lahn about joining the ticket, Wulf admitted he was hesitant, but the more he thought about it, he decided it was the most important gubernatorial race of his or his children’s lifetimes. Without delving into specifics, Wulf told the crowd it was “disheartening” to hear of “the lies being told” by the Democrats.

“What I will tell you, and I won’t say much on this, is Iowans see through that stuff. They see through the lies, they see through the BS, and they’re gonna see exactly what we stand for vs. what our extreme liberalists on the other side stand for. They can talk the game, but when it comes to follow through, we have the record to be able to prove it,” he said.

After speaking for just over five minutes, Wulf stuck around to meet attendees and shake hands with fellow elected officials including Rep. Dean Fisher (R-Montour), Sen. Kara Warme (R-Ames), Rep. David Blom (R-Marshalltown), Marshall County Sheriff Joel Phillips, Marshall County Auditor/Recorder Nan Benson, Marshall County Supervisor Jarret Heil and Tama County Supervisor David Turner in the audience.

About 45 minutes later, McGowan, who hails from Sioux City, took his turn speaking, joking that it was the first time he had been given both a microphone and a one-hour time slot. An Iowa Air National Guard veteran, McGowan holds a law degree but has spent the last two decades plus in the economic development field and currently serves as the president of the Siouxland Chamber of Commerce and the Siouxland Initiative.

The district McGowan is running to represent, of which Marshall County makes up the eastern border, is known as one of the most conservative in the country, but he told the audience it would be important to elect Republicans for all of the seats on the ballot in November, including governor and U.S. Senate.

A graduate of Sioux City Heelan High School and an avid political historian, McGowan, 59, detailed his longtime interest in government dating back to when he met then-President Ronald Reagan as a 17-year-old representing Iowa at American Legion Boys Nation in Washington, D.C. Today, he and his wife have six children, five of whom are currently serving in the U.S. Navy while a sixth is entering her freshman year at Heelan.

As he dove into the crux of his stump speech, McGowan sounded the alarm about the rise of self-described Democratic Socialists who have won primaries elsewhere in the country, sharing a history lesson about the Cold War and the failed confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork, from whom McGowan would eventually take law school classes. Although he never practiced law, he said he went to law school so that he could talk intelligently about topics like the First and Second amendments to the Constitution. McGowan expressed his opposition to eminent domain for private gain, in reference to the proposed CO2 pipeline, and he looked back fondly on his efforts to create jobs in the Siouxland area.

His intention, he said, is not to be a career politician — this is the first time he has ever run for office — and McGowan even shared the story of convincing his 86-year-old mother that it was a good idea, ultimately tying his decision back to the nation’s founding principles and the civic values of faith, family and freedom.

“Those are the priorities of this campaign, and those are the priorities that I believe this country was founded upon. I intend to go to Washington… and I intend to fight for those priorities. I intend to reflect your values and to be your voice,” he said.

From there, he spent about a half hour fielding questions from the audience, and when asked for information about his Democratic opponent Dave Dawson, McGowan declined to attack him but reiterated his own conservative values and his fundamental disagreements with the opposition party, calling the 2026 election a choice between “crazy and common sense” on issues like men being allowed in women’s locker rooms. He also expressed optimism that the GOP can hold the House in 2026 despite projections to the country and touted his experience studying the history of Marxism and socialism, including the National Socialist German Workers Party, better known as the Nazi Party, that rose to power in Germany in the 1930s before praising the late Dwight D. Eisenhower as a military genius for his efforts to defeat Hitler in WWII.

“Here we are, almost a century later, and we have people successfully running for office saying they’re Democratic Socialists? Tell me what the difference between a National Socialist and a Democratic Socialist is, and you’re gonna give me some kind of flowery language about how every other socialist organization misapplied Marxist principles and they did it wrong and we have to give it another chance,” he said. “No we don’t. We have to kill it. We have to destroy it. We need to put it in the ash heap of human history. So any opponent that I will run against that puts a D behind their name and defends that platform has become my opponent, and I will treat them as such. We will prevail in November, and we will prevail with a message that puts America First and Iowa always.”