DGA - Democratic Governors Association

06/04/2026 | News release | Distributed by Public on 06/04/2026 12:36

New Report Details Fake Outsider Zach Lahn’s History as a “Political Operative Who Blocked Medicaid Expansion”

New Report Details Fake Outsider Zach Lahn's History as a "Political Operative Who Blocked Medicaid Expansion"

"There's a problem at the center of his outsider narrative"

It's already been well-reported that Zach Lahn is a carpetbagger who has been lying about living in Iowa. Now, a new report from the first day of the general election is detailing how he's also a well-connected political operative, despite claiming he is an outsider.

Read more about Zach Lahn's long career as a political operative:

Iowa Starting Line: Meet Zach Lahn: a Koch-connected political operative running for Iowa governor

  • Iowa's new Republican nominee for governor Zach Lahn campaigned as an outsider farmer fighting the political establishment. But before he was "Iowa First," he was a Koch-connected political operative who blocked Medicaid expansion in Montana, co-founded a Koch-funded private school in Kansas, and barely met Iowa's residency requirement to run.
  • While his campaign has been spinning him as the governor race's clear-eyed, anti-establishment candidate, available reporting documents Lahn's long history in politics during which he built skills and contacts that he's relying on in his bid to help Republicans keep the governor's mansion this November.
  • [Lahn's] Legistorm profile is a paper trail of his early political career going all the way back to when he was finishing up college.
  • After some years on the campaign trail, he got his big break with Americans for Prosperity.
  • …when Lahn came on in 2014 as state director, he helped lead AFP Montana's push to block Medicaid expansion in the 2015 legislative session.
  • "We are deeply disappointed in the legislature's decision tonight to expand Medicaid…." Lahn wrote in a statement.
  • Lahn moved to Wichita, Kansas a few years later. There he co-founded a private school called Wonder… The private school project was financed by Chase Koch-son of billionaire Charles Koch-and Chase Koch's wife Annie Koch. During the years that followed, Annie Koch and Lahn divorced their spouses and married each other.
  • A Kansas Reflector analysis of voter registration records showed Lahn only barely became eligible to run in Iowa.

###

DGA - Democratic Governors Association published this content on June 04, 2026, and is solely responsible for the information contained herein. Distributed via Public Technologies (PUBT), unedited and unaltered, on June 04, 2026 at 18:36 UTC. If you believe the information included in the content is inaccurate or outdated and requires editing or removal, please contact us at [email protected]