The State Objections Panel ruled Monday that two Libertarian candidates running for governor and Congress should be taken off the 2026 Iowa general election ballot, sustaining challenges to their qualifications as candidates.
A third Libertarian survived a challenge to his campaign paperwork and will remain on the November 2026 ballot.
Republicans filed multiple challenges last week to Libertarian candidates’ qualifications for the general election ballot, after the candidates had submitted paperwork to the Iowa Secretary of State’s office earlier in June.
One GOP challenge questioned the validity of Rick Stewart’s place on the ballot for Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District, as he had identified himself as “Rick Stewart” on his affidavit of candidacy — a different version of his name from “Richard Stewart,” which was used on some nominating petitions.
The three-person panel, made up of Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate, Attorney General Brenna Bird and state Auditor Rob Sand, did not accept this objection. Pate said it was “very common for candidates to run using shortened versions of their names.”
“The key test that’s typically used in election administration is whether the name that’s being used is sufficiently associated with a candidate, that a potential voter would not be confused by,” Pate said.
Marco Battaglia removed from ballot
But there was another name-based objection that the panel ruled to support. In the 3rd Congressional District, two Republicans associated with U.S. Rep. Zach Nunn’s reelection campaign filed a challenge to Libertarian candidate Marco Battaglia’s candidacy on the basis that this name differs from his legal name, Mark T. Anderson.
The candidate argued that he is best known by the name Marco Battaglia, which he uses in his work as a musician and podcaster. He and Stephanie Berlin, chair of the Libertarian Party of Iowa, told the panel this name meets the requirement mentioned by Pate that it would not create voter confusion, as it is the name he is known by professionally and as a previous candidate for office.
Berlin also pointed out the candidate has “appeared on the ballot numerous times” using the name Marco Battaglia.
Sand, a Democrat, asked Battaglia and Berlin if they believed there was an “estoppel” argument — a legal doctrine preventing a party from arguing from a position that contradicts their own previous positions — on the basis that this name had been accepted onto the ballot in other elections.
Berlin said she agreed with this perspective, and also said other candidates are allowed to move forward with names that differ from their legal names. She pointed to U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson, who is running for U.S. Senate in 2026, who still uses her maiden name “Hinson” as a candidate while her legal last name is now “Arenholz.”
But Bird, a Republican, said she did not believe these were the same situations.
“I guess the only … legal comment I would make is I don’t think Iowa law allows someone to run for office under a fictitious name that’s not their name,” Bird said.
She and Pate voted to sustain the objection, taking Battaglia off the ballot.
There is still an avenue for Battaglia to make it back onto the 2026 general election ballot, by challenging the panel’s decision in court. Libertarian National Committee Chair Evan McMahon said the national party plans to consider taking legal action to support Battaglia’s campaign.
“The Libertarian Party will support our candidates and our Iowa affiliate in every possible way against the GOP’s cowardly and frivolous attempts to derail the democratic process, including exploring legal options to restore candidates like Mr. Battaglia to the ballot,” McMahon said. “When Republicans can’t win on their ideas they resort to their favorite tactic, suppressing voter choice.”
Berlin told reporters following the meeting that the panel’s decision was “very partisan,” and followed other actions taken by Republicans to stop Battaglia from running in the 3rd District — one of the U.S. House seats projected to be among the most competitive in the nation in 2026.
First reported by the Des Moines Register, Battaglia said Nunn, as well as U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, contacted him and urged him to end his campaign. One of the individuals who contacted his campaign submitted a challenge to the State Objections Panel: Annie Kuhle, a campaign adviser for Nunn.
During meetings with Kuhle and Nunn, Butler said Battaglia was offered “many things to drop out, time in the White House, time to go visit people.”
Screenshots of texts between the parties show Battaglia wrote, “I would consider it if you would be willing to introduce impeachment of the President for Treason, Bribery and other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” Kuhle responded with thanks for continued communications.
“But to be clear this is not a negotiation; Zach will not be making any promises about official policy actions in exchange for your removal from the ballot,” Kuhle wrote. “We came to you to make you aware that you may have accepted a bribe or an illegal in-kind contribution, and you could possibly be in legal, FEC and/or ethical jeopardy and an offer to help. We are moving forward with a full investigation.”
Kuhle and the Nunn campaign have said their contact with Battaglia was over concerns that his campaign had collected signatures to qualify for the ballot using a third-party organization without proper reporting, which could violate campaign finance rules. Battaglia told the Register he did not believe the signatures were collected in a “dubious” way.
“There is strong evidence that the ballot access signatures submitted for Marco Battaglia/Mark Anderson were collected by dark-money outside groups with ties to the Democrat Party,” Kuhle said in a statement. “I met with Marco Battaglia/Mark Anderson to inform him of my concerns regarding the origin of those signatures, notify him that I intended to challenge the petitions, and discuss my plans to investigate the circumstances surrounding their collection. I also asked whether he would be willing to cooperate with that investigation. No offer, inducement, or thing of value was ever proposed or provided in exchange for withdrawing the nomination petitions.”
Battaglia told Politico that Nunn did, in fact, make him an offer during his visit on June 7. He alleges Nunn said, “We’ll fly you out to D.C. and you can be my wing man. We’ll make you the poster boy for election integrity, and we’ll hang out with Robert Kennedy Jr.”
Disputes over election worker duties
The candidates running as the Libertarian ticket for Iowa governor and lieutenant governor — Nicholas Gluba and Jules Cutler — lost their spot on the ballot. The State Objections Panel ruled that Cutler did not submit an affidavit of candidacy as lieutenant governor by the 5 p.m. deadline on June 2, meaning the campaign did not meet a requirement to make it onto the ballot. Rob Sand, the Democratic nominee for governor, recused himself from consideration of the challenge. Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig, a Republican, took Sand’s place on the board.
Cutler, joined by her attorney, Jacob Heard, told the panel Cutler was informed she was not required to submit this document when she came with Gluba as he filed paperwork and nomination petitions to qualify for the ballot.
Dani Phillips, an elections support specialist for the secretary of state’s office, who the Libertarian candidates said filed their paperwork, came to answer questions from the panel Monday. When asked by Bird, Phillips said she did not receive an affidavit of candidacy from Cutler, nor was she asked whether Cutler should file an affidavit.
But Heard and Cutler argued Phillips may be misremembering the situation, as she answered she did not know if Cutler was there when she had accepted Gluba’s paperwork.
Cutler, an immigrant from the former Soviet Union, told reporters after the meeting, “I feel like I woke up in the USSR.”
She criticized the panel for accepting Phillips’ statement that she remembered not being given an affidavit by Cutler, despite Phillips not also remembering that Cutler was present, alongside other details like who wrote the affidavit or her commission date. Cutler also said she was not provided camera footage of the lobby of the secretary of state’s office June 2, which would have shown she was present when the paperwork was being filed.
“I am disappointed, I am frustrated, and I cannot stress how disheartening it is that our country is being just completely destroyed — [for] what?” Cutler said. “Because we want to be on the ballot, because 8,000-plus people signed the petition, and some clerk who doesn’t know what she’s doing refused to tell the truth?”
Cutler said she believes not appealing the panel’s decision would be doing a disservice to the 8,000 people who signed nomination petitions to support Gluba’s gubernatorial campaign, and to him as a candidate.
Robin Opsahl covers the Iowa Legislature and politics for Iowa Capital Dispatch, where this story first appeared.
