MAHA-backed farmer Zach Lahn dealt President Donald Trump his first major endorsement loss of the 2026 primaries as he bested the president’s pick, Rep. Randy Feenstra (R-IA), in the Iowa GOP gubernatorial primary.
Lahn defeated Feenstra by approximately 1,600 votes in the Tuesday night showdown, with Lahn receiving about 37.79% of the vote and Feenstra receiving about 37.01%, as of early Wednesday. Feenstra is one of the first Trump-endorsed candidates to fall in the GOP primaries, marking a bump in the road for the president’s resounding success rate in sending his candidates to the general election and ousting incumbents such as Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY).
As Feenstra ran on an agenda centered on his support for Trump’s policies, boosting affordability and agricultural traditions in Iowa, and an anti-China and anti-DEI message, Lahn made the ideals of the Make America Healthy Again movement the focal point of his campaign. Lahn, endorsed by MAHA Action, the campaign arm of the movement, talked about health and lifestyle issues such as how to tackle the rising rates of cancer diagnoses, ensuring Iowa has safe drinking water, and keeping family farms safe from corporate interests.
“Iowa has the fastest-growing cancer rate in the world. We all know something is terribly wrong, but too many politicians from Washington, D.C., to Des Moines have had their heads stuck in the sand while big ag and big pharma printed money. This will not go on when I’m governor,” Lahn said during his Tuesday evening victory speech.
Lahn’s victory is a major win for the MAHA movement, as advocates look to gain more fighters in agricultural states such as Iowa who will take on the fight against glyphosate and pesticide use.
Lahn, who had been polling as an underdog against Feenstra for much of the race in the limited polls, will take on the Democratic candidate, Rob Sand, in the November general election.
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With Sand, the current state auditor, Democrats are hoping to put the formerly purple Hawkeye state into play in November, with the head of the Democratic Governors Association, Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY), boasting that he believes Iowa is in play for a blue flip.
Trump won Iowa in the 2024 presidential election by over 13 percentage points. Iowa last had a Democratic governor in 2011, under Gov. Chet Culver.