Republican Zach Lahn has been spending a lot of time in Kansas, where he has a home, over the last seven months as he campaigns for governor as the “Iowa First” candidate, the Des Moines Register reported on Thursday.
“I’m in Iowa the majority of the time, a tremendous amount of time,” Lahn told the Register. The Register reviewed flight records for a private plane Lahn owns through an LLC, and found 37 flights to Wichita, Kansas since Oct. 1.
“Across 224 days, that averages to about one flight every six days,” the Register’s Brianne Pfannenstiel wrote.
Lahn told the Register that he travels to Wichita, where he has a home, to spend time with the children in his blended family from his wife’s previous marriage. Lahn is also connected to the southern Kansas city through Wonder, a private school located on the campus of Wichita State University that he co-founded with his now-wife Annie.
When Wonder opened its doors in 2018, Annie was married to Chase Koch, Charles Koch’s son. Charles Koch, with his late brother David, created one of the most important funding networks in conservative politics to advance their favored causes and candidates. (Support from the Koch Brothers was vital for Joni Ernst’s first campaign for Senate in 2014, although its extent wasn’t known until a year later when Politico published an in-depth story on “the secretive role played by the Kochs’ donors and operatives in boosting Ernst.”) Before co-founding Wonder, Lahn had served as Montana state director for Americans for Prosperity, a major nationwide political advocacy group founded and funded by the Koch Brothers.
The Register reported that Lahn “said he considers himself a full-time resident of Iowa.” In 2014, while working Americans for Prosperity in Montana, Lahn bought a farm outside Belle Plaine that his family owned before selling it in 2005. It’s now his principal residence. Lahn told the Register “he made the full move back to the state in 2023.”
In a news release following publication of the Register’s story, the Iowa Democratic Party noted that Lahn re-registered to vote in Iowa in 2024, “just before the two year minimum to meet Iowa’s residency requirement to run for governor.”
Lahn said if elected governor he would cut back on the trips to Kansas, and “it would be a different arrangement, and we’d work it out. Because, you know, we’d be in Iowa as much as humanly possible.”
Zach Lahn grew up near Sioux City, and attended the University of Colorado. In addition to owning the Benton County farm, he and his wife co-founded an investment company that focuses on real estate, technology and agriculture.
When Lahn launched his campaign for governor at the beginning of last November, he declared, “I believe Donald J. Trump fought for America while the establishment fought him, and I believe Iowa deserves that same courage in its Governor — someone who won’t bow, won’t bend, and won’t run.” His campaign store sells red “Iowa First” ballcaps in imitation of Trump’s signature merchandise.
“I’m my own biggest donor,” Lahn said at the start of his campaign, which according to his campaign site means he “does not answer to large corporations or special interest — only to God, his family, and the people of Iowa.” Lahn has reportedly given $2 million to his campaign so far.
Lahn has been endorsed by MAHA Action, and one-time Saturday Night Live comedian Rob Schneider headlined a campaign event in Des Moines for Lahn this week. Last month, former congressman Steve King endorsed Lahn, calling him the “one conservative that’s got momentum” in the governor’s race.
King, of course, was an important figure in Iowa Republican politics for decades, until the national Republican Party finally disowned him in 2018 over his long history of racist rhetoric and associations with white supremacist and antisemitic groups.
“We must stand up against white supremacy and hate in all forms, and I strongly condemn [King’s] behavior,” the chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee said in 2018 in a statement announcing the national party was cutting ties with the then-eight-term congressman representing western Iowa. King was still embraced by the Iowa Republican Party — he was a featured speaker at Gov. Reynolds’ final 2018 campaign rally — and won a ninth term that year. Two years later, the Iowa Republican Party abandoned King and threw its support behind Randy Feenstra in the primary. Feenstra defeated King. Like Lahn, Feenstra is running for governor this year. Feenstra is generally considered to be the candidate most likely to win the Republican nomination.
Responding to King’s endorsement, Lahn praised the former congressman as “someone who did the right thing even when it was unpopular.”
“He loves the state of Iowa – its heritage, its culture, and its people – and I’m honored to have his support,” Lahn said in a social media post.
One of the television ads Lahn has run during the campaign focuses on immigration, a major topic for King.
Facing the camera, Lahn declares he will “make it impossible for illegals to get jobs here” as governor. “When I’m governor, catch and release is over, government benefits for illegals are over, and we’ll ban H-1B visa-holders from being hired by Iowa government and universities.”
H-1B visas are highly competitive visas that allow a citizen of another country who can fill a job the federal government considers a “specialty occupation” to work in the United States for up to three years. Federal law defines specialty occupations as those that require “theoretical and practical application of a body of highly specialized knowledge.” In addition to being able to fill such a job, an applicant for an H-1B visa must have at least a bachelor’s degree or the equivalent.
“It’s pretty simple, Iowa jobs are for Iowans,” Lahn said in his TV ad, summarizing his position on immigration.
In its news release, the Iowa Democratic Party said flight data showed Lahn’s “plane spending ‘75 nights in Wichita’ compared to just ‘51 nights in Belle Plaine,’” and called him “a part-time resident” of Iowa.
