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‘We are here to defend the culture’

GOP gubernatorial candidate Zach Lahn draws standing room crowd at Legends Saturday

By Robert Maharry 10 min read

With election day less than four weeks away, Republican gubernatorial candidate Zach Lahn, who was joined by his wife Annie and all seven of their children, spoke to a capacity crowd of at least 70 inside Legends American Grill in Marshalltown on Saturday afternoon, focusing his remarks on his desire to protect and defend the culture of Iowa while highlighting key differences between himself and his Democratic opponent, Rob Sand.

Lahn, a farmer, businessman and former Americans for Prosperity (AFP) state director who resides in Belle Plaine, spoke for about a half hour after an opening prayer and an introduction from Rep. David Blom (R-Marshalltown), noting that he had held events in Cedar Rapids and Jones County earlier in the day but was planning to go fishing as soon as he was wrapped up in Marshalltown. As he dove into his speech, Lahn said the media that is "usually biased" is even more biased leading up to the election, which is borne out by polls that he argued were attempting to suppress Republican energy and promote the idea of a "blue wave" in the 2026 midterms.

That led him to the main reason he decided to seek the governor's office: "to protect and defend the culture of the state we love," which drew a round of applause. Lahn criticized efforts to convince Iowans that their lives are terrible and linked it to a larger campaign to undermine Western culture. From there, he shared the story of a man he met in Nevada, Iowa, who had lost his job after 26 years because he had refused to use a coworker's preferred pronouns.

"If you want to understand the fight for culture, you have to understand that literally, the left, and I'm not just talking about Democrats, I'm talking about the left, this institutionalized support for these ideas, have been pushing for a long time to get into these institutions in our society and undermine them, and in large part, they've been successful and unchecked for a very long time," he said.

Citing his own strong interest in history, Lahn pointed to historical figures like Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Vladimir Lenin as the architects of the aforementioned nefarious efforts to ban inheritance and erode the family unit. From there, he took the first of several digs at Sand, the current state auditor, for telling an interviewer he would not ban books on transgenderism in elementary school classrooms.

What makes the U.S. Constitution unique, Lahn said, is the idea that each individual has inalienable rights the government cannot take away no matter how much the collective tries to violate them.

"I'm here to tell you that this is the actual fight we're taking on, and it might look different in the United States of America than it does look in other places, but make no bones about this. We are here to defend the culture, to preserve this for the next generation. We're here to bolster the institutions of our society, to help our local communities have more control than the state or federal government. That's actually what we're doing here right now, and my promise to you all is I will never stop fighting for the culture of the state of Iowa. I promise you that," he said.

A first-time candidate for office, Lahn referenced his friendship with the late Charlie Kirk and realized when he saw a video of the assassination in Utah last September that he had "no excuse" not to step up and run for governor. From there, Lahn traced his own roots back to his great-great-great grandfather who came to the U.S. in 1853 and joined the Union Army 10 years later, noting that more Iowans fought in the Civil War per capita than any other state.

Modern education, he contended, is predicated on the concept of "the oppressor vs. the oppressed," and he stands by his assessment that it has "a Marxist bent," a comment Sand criticized him for during their first debate last Tuesday.

"There's never been a country in the history of the world that's ever been perfect. None. I don't know any that's ever tried as hard to be perfect as the United States of America has," he said. "And I think that's something we need to be very, very proud of. We gave 600,000 lives to end slavery. We sent our own Navy to the coast of Africa to make sure it was shut down. After WWII, we could've ruled the entire world. We were the only one with an atomic weapon. What did we do instead? We rebuilt the countries that we were at war with under the Marshall Plan. We've led the largest humanitarian missions ever known to mankind. We've secured more rights, alleviated more poverty, alleviated more oppression than any civilization in the history of the world, and my favorite part of that story is this. What did we ask for in return? Nothing, because that's what America does."

Lahn then recounted the early days of his campaign, from a town hall in Lemars with eight people to larger and larger crowds -- in fact, one of his final stops before the primary was an appearance at Legends for a speech in front of the Pachyderm Herd in late May -- and he attributed his success not to himself, but instead his message criticizing corporate control of the system.

His long-term goal, he added, is to change the narrative within the Republican Party, which has held trifecta control of the state government since the 2016 election. The GOP must focus on keeping kids in Iowa, protecting family farms as more and more landowners live out of state, improving public education and ending Iowa's cancer crisis by funding programs that improve the state's water quality.

"It doesn't matter if you're left or right. You don't want Iowa's kids leaving Iowa. You don't want our family farms dying off. You don't want our public education system in the bottom half, and you definitely don't want your friends, your family and your neighbors getting sick with cancer," Lahn said.

As part of his fight for culture, Lahn contrasted Iowa with places like Illinois and Minnesota, giving Sand credit for a joke about Illinois governors serving two terms -- one in office and one in prison -- but also noting that JB Pritzker is an ally and supporter of Sand. Again drawing historical parallels, Lahn said that European immigrants came to the U.S. in the 19th century for a chance to own the ground under their feet, and he urged his supporters in the room to stay motivated through the home stretch between now and Nov. 3.

In assessing the work of the state legislature over the past several years, Lahn praised the GOP's actions to restrict abortion access, expand school choice and cut taxes, and he warned that Sand's campaign message is reminiscent of Barack Obama's "Hope and Change" platform from 2008.

"The deeper problem is politicians that are able to be bought off by special interests, corporate giants and lobbyists to do their will instead of the will of the people," he said.

Sand, Lahn said, outspent Republican challenger Todd Halbur 30-to-1 in his 2022 re-election campaign and still only won by a few thousand votes, and he told the audience the governor's seat will not be for sale in 2026. He pledged to fight against the "uniparty" and break up agricultural monopolies in the spirit of one of his political heroes, President Theodore Roosevelt.

"My commitment is to be one of those people, to go fight on behalf of you all and to take on these battles to bring choice and competition to our farmers and consumers, better education system, clean water, to continue the fight to protect life in our state. That is why I'm here, and my ask of you is please, get people out to vote," Lahn said. "We cannot let the left gain a foothold in Iowa like they've gained in Minnesota, Illinois, California and all these coastal states. So today, I'm asking for your vote, and I would just say my goal is to make Iowa the best place to raise a family, to build a farm, to start a business, to pass something down to the next generation, and I'm gonna fight for you all to do that."

The candidate took a few questions from the audience, the first of which pertained to ranked choice voting (a system Sand has endorsed) -- Lahn called it "a recipe for fraud" and advocated for voter identification laws to keep Iowa's current system intact. Another, a farmer, asked about the allegations of financial fraud and theft against Lt. Gov. nominee Derek Wulf and how he could reassure fellow farmers about voting for the GOP ticket.

In response, Lahn said Wulf had never missed or been late on a payment for his farm loan when his bank, which was over its legal lending limit, pulled his line of credit. Wulf is now in the process of refinancing, but Lahn said the Democratic sheriff and county attorney in Black Hawk County have made the investigation "political" despite never having spoken with Wulf directly. It's also a symptom of a larger problem in agriculture, he said, as more and more family farmers are filing for bankruptcy, and they continue to face skyrocketing input costs. On Monday, the Des Moines Register reported that Wulf has received a $540,000 loan from an “unnamed” source through an LLC in Illinois.

When asked what he would do for the faith community in Iowa, Lahn said his biggest goal would be to stay out of the business of churches and keep Sharia Law out of the state. He also called for more public-private partnerships with churches to solve societal issues at the local level.

"We have local problems to solve. The government in the state needs to be focused on solving those. It's one of the reasons why I've said that for universities, the time of focusing on global problems is over when I'm governor. We are gonna focus on making life better in the state of Iowa, solving the cancer crisis with our universities, solving our farming issues with Iowa State University, working together to actually make life better for the people who live here, which is why our universities were started in the first place, to educate the next generation," he said.

In closing, Lahn returned to the theme of protecting the state's culture, and he stuck around to shake hands with attendees on the patio. Both he and Sand, who had been in town a day earlier and visited JBS and the Iowa Veterans Home, got the honor of working in the kitchen at La Carreta Mexican Grill and making their own burritos with a little help from the restaurant's owner, Alfonso Medina.

Contact Robert Maharry at (641) 753-6611 ext. 255 or rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.

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