Democratic candidate Rob Sand defeated Republican Zach Lahn in a hotly contested race for Iowa governor, becoming the first Democrat elected to lead the Hawkeye State in 20 years.
The Associated Press called the race at 11:14 p.m. Sand had 57.7% of the vote against 42.3% for Lahn, with 79% of the vote counted at the time of the call.
President Donald Trump won Iowa handily all three times since his first election in 2016, taking the state in 2024 by more than 13 percentage points.
Iowa has not elected a Democrat for governor since 2006, when Gov. Chet Culver (D-IA) won. Culver lost his reelection campaign to Republican Terry Branstad in 2010.
Sand, the current state auditor, and Lahn, a regenerative farmer and businessman, were engaged in a bitter race for the governor’s mansion vacated by retiring Gov. Kim Reynolds (R-IA).
From early on in the campaign, Sand attempted to score points on Lahn for primarily living in Wichita, Kansas, instead of in Iowa, which Lahn has insisted is because of his blended family dynamics. Lahn is married to Annie Koch Lahn, the former daughter-in-law of Charles Koch. The pair share one biological child, and each has children from previous marriages, of whom they share custody in Kansas with their respective exes.
Lahn and Sand exchanged harsh words with one another over Lahn’s disputed residency during their first televised gubernatorial debate in early October. Many Iowa voters who spoke with the Washington Examiner following the debate said both men behaved badly.
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Lahn was one of a few GOP candidates to win his primary election earlier this year without an endorsement from Trump. Lahn has been a champion of the Make America Healthy Again movement and received an endorsement and financial support from the MAHA Action PAC.
Sand branded himself during the campaign as a nonideological candidate, saying he chose the Democratic Party in large part because the state requires partisan registration to vote. He promised on the campaign trail to veto any so-called culture war legislation and to work with the Republican-majority state legislature on bipartisan issues, such as the state’s deficit and its high cancer rates.