MAHA Action-backed Zach Lahn’s win in Iowa’s GOP gubernatorial primary is energizing other Make America Healthy Again candidates who hope to defeat establishment Republicans.
The businessman and farmer narrowly defeated U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra in a vote of 37.8% to 37.1%, according to the Iowa secretary of state.
Lahn has built grassroots support in the U.S. agriculture powerhouse while vowing to “Make Iowa Healthy Again,” battle a “cancer crisis,” and push for clean water, food and “honest” medicine.
“Zach is an outsider, business-owner, MAHA-endorsed and just took down the establishment in Iowa (sound familiar?),” Philip Sarnecki, a MAHA Institute-backed Republican contender for Kansas governor, said Wednesday. “He will make a great Governor! It’s our turn to take down the career politicians in Kansas! Let’s go!”
Feenstra, a member of the House Agriculture and Ways and Means committees, lost to Lahn despite getting a last-minute endorsement from President Donald Trump.
“Feenstra fell to farmer Zach Lahn by less than one point after incurring the wrath of grassroots conservatives, who despised the congressman due to his establishment ties and reluctance to engage with voters on the ground,” analysts at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report said.
Lahn won 52 of Iowa's 99 counties in toppling Feenstra, including 21 of the 36 counties in Feenstra's district. He overcame Feenstra's sizeable margin in two of the three largest counties, Pottawattamie and Woodbury, while winning Story County by 3 percentage points.
All other Trump-backed candidates in Iowa won their races yesterday, the Des Moines Register noted.
Prior to Tuesday's elections, Trump had a 100% victory rate in all 118 House, Senate and governor's races where he had endorsed candidates this year, according to Fox News.
The MAHA PAC, a hybrid political action committee focused on electing candidates committed to the MAHA agenda, called Lahn's win "one of the most consequential MAHA-movement victories of the 2026 election cycle to date."
"Iowa's health is on the ballot in November, and we are ready," Tony Lyons, MAHA PAC co-president, said in a statement.
The MAHA victory comes on the heels of infighting among Republicans on Capitol Hill over pesticide safety laws.
Lahn, a sixth-generation Iowan, has been outspoken in his concern about farm chemicals like glyphosate, the world’s most widely used weedkiller and active ingredient in Bayer’s Roundup herbicide.
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Appearing on a "MAHA Media Hub" broadcast today, Lahn cited Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s support for regenerative farming practices "to get farmers less reliant on these chemicals [and] to help them make more money. No farmer wants to spend more money on these products."
Bayer says glyphosate's safety has been repeatedly affirmed by regulatory bodies worldwide. But it’s also the focus of an avalanche of lawsuits against the German-based company. Bayer is part of a case before the U.S. Supreme Court on the issue of pesticide-labeling laws and has proposed a settlement to compensate people who allege exposure to the herbicide caused their non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Many farm groups also say glyphosate and other pesticides are safe, arguing that curtailing their use would hinder growers’ ability to raise the world’s food.
“I think what farmers want is to understand the truth, to know that their government is telling them the truth about these products,” Lahn told the “The Tucker Carlson Show” in February. “But as with many other things, the corporate capture is so heavy.”
“When you talk about glyphosate or glyphosate-based herbicides … the EPA studied this for years, we know way more than we've ever known about this, and we also know that there are significant risks associated with its use,” Lahn said.
The Modern Ag Alliance, a coalition founded by Bayer, calls glyphosate the “backbone of modern farming.”
It’s “a cost-effective tool that can be used safely as directed, which keeps yields high, food prices affordable, and allows farmers to implement important conservation practices,” according to the group’s website. “Glyphosate has been deemed safe to use as directed by U.S. and global health regulators for over 50 years.”
Lahn also said earlier this year that he wants to protect Iowa land from outside prospecting.
“Our farmland is being owned by people who don’t live here. Our jobs are being shipped to other countries -- or factories being shipped to other countries,” Lahn said earlier this year. “We have unchecked monopolies that are exploiting our farmers. We have the highest cancer rate, but we're not talking about it.”
Lahn in November will face the unopposed Democratic nominee for governor, state Auditor Rob Sand.
“In a highly competitive general election. Democrats believe Lahn has glaring flaws, pointing to his longtime residence in Kansas and his embrace of controversial former Rep. Steve King,” Cook analysts said. “But Lahn proved to be far more compelling than Feenstra on the stump, and he has the ability to at least partly self-fund his campaign.”
“Time will tell whether more establishment-minded Feenstra voters are open to voting for Sand, but for now this contest appears poised to remain a `toss-up,’” according to the Cook election forecasters.
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Agri-Pulse reporter Grace Miller contributed to this story.
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