Lahn campaigns as a farmer and political outsider. But his resume tells a different story. He got his start as a staffer for a hard-right Colorado state senator, then managed Congressional campaigns in Colorado, Montana, and Iowa. His big break came running Americans for Prosperity’s Montana operation—that’s the Koch Industries political network—where he led the fight to block Medicaid expansion for 75,000 people and lost.

He then moved to Wichita, Kansas, co-founded a Koch-funded private school, and as recently as 2022 was still voting there. He registered to vote in Iowa in October 2024—just barely meeting the two-year residency requirement to run for governor. His wife listed their Wichita home as her primary residence that same year. They later sold it to an LLC for one dollar.

But if elected, he says he’ll make Iowa his one and only: “If I’m elected governor, 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,” Lahn told the Des Moines Register.

For Democrats, an unknown Republican nominee with a complicated backstory and a thin Iowa footprint is an opportunity. For Lahn, the relative obscurity might actually be an asset—he gets to keep writing his own story until someone makes him stop.

That’s where accountability journalism comes in. And I hope reporting my piece helps correct the record that he’s trying to spin. You can’t spend a career running campaigns and working in congressional offices and say you’re a political outsider. It’s disingenuous to say a campaign is the underdog when your party has run the state for a decade.

Rob Sand is a strong general election candidate, but this race will turn in part on whether Iowans learn who Lahn actually is before November.

A few open questions I’m still reporting on: How deep does the Koch network’s financial support for Lahn’s campaign actually run? He talks about his family farm, but the property has proven difficult to track down due to the shell game of LLCs. Where is it? And will his partial residency in Kansas become an issue for voters ahead of the general?

I’ll be covering all of it here at Iowa Starting Line. You can also follow my work on social media. I’m @zacharyorensmith wherever you scroll.

Election Day is on Nov. 3. I’ll see you on the trail!