Iowa Republicans trail in governor's race amid rural economic strain

GOP nominees leave Trump’s name out of state fair speeches

Iowa Republicans entered the closing weeks of the 2026 midterm campaign trailing Democrats in the governor’s race and facing competitive contests in a U.S. Senate race and two House districts, according to interviews and public polling gathered at the Iowa State Fair. Two of the party’s nominees omitted President Trump’s name from their highest-profile fair appearances, and fairgoers and state party officials cited rural economic strain from Trump’s tariffs, the war in Iran and stagnant grain prices as eroding GOP support in a state Trump carried by 13 percentage points in 2024.

At the Iowa State Fair’s traditional Des Moines Register political soapbox, where candidates address fairgoers and a throng of media, both Zach Lahn, the GOP nominee for governor, and Joe Mitchell, the Republican nominee in a northeast Iowa district rated as “lean Republican” by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, avoided mentioning Trump during their opening-week appearances. The 11-day fair, which this year featured a prizewinning boar weighing 1,246 pounds, marks the unofficial start of the campaign’s final phase. Lahn, a businessman and farmer carrying Trump’s endorsement, told reporters after his Friday speech that the omission was intentional: “I talk about Iowa.” The omissions came against the backdrop of a recent Fox News poll of Iowa voters that found Trump viewed more unfavorably than favorably.

The shift is a sharp reversal from just three years ago, when Trump dominated the fair as a presidential candidate — his Boeing 757 circling overhead several times before he arrived on a day four other presidential contenders were competing for attention. Iowa still sends an entirely Republican congressional delegation to Washington, holds the governor’s office and both U.S. Senate seats, and backed Trump by 13 percentage points in 2024. The Democratic National Committee was so disenchanted with the state that it ended a roughly five-decade tradition of Iowa hosting the party’s first presidential nominating contest; Republicans are expected to keep it first for 2028.

Part of the state’s political volatility reflects two major openings in a single cycle: Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds and GOP Sen. Joni Ernst are each declining to seek a third term. Lahn has trailed Rob Sand, Iowa’s Democratic state auditor and the only Democrat elected to statewide office, in every public poll this summer. Asked about the deficit, Lahn said: “The trend is that we’re closing the gap.” He said he expects Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will join him on the Iowa campaign trail soon; like Kennedy, Lahn has argued that large agriculture companies are making Americans sick. In the U.S. Senate race, Democratic state Rep. Josh Turek, a former Paralympic wheelchair basketball medalist, led in one poll this summer, while Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson was narrowly ahead in others. Two of Iowa’s four congressional districts are rated as tossups by nonpartisan analysts.

Democrats are pouring millions of dollars into the state’s races, framing the openings as unusual. “This is an opportunity that I have not seen in many years,” said Matt Paul, a Democratic strategist in Iowa. Republicans, however, are challenging Sand’s moderation and signaling an aggressive response. Iowa GOP operatives said they expect photos from Sand’s brief college-age modeling career in Paris and Milan to surface in advertising; some of the images are described as nearly fully nude and a bit avant-garde. Asked about the photos in a fairgrounds interview, Sand said the modeling had been a part-time job that was not that different from other jobs he held during college.

Economic stress shaped the political conversation at the fair. Fairgoers and state party officials cited the effects of Trump’s tariffs, the war in Iran, stagnant grain prices and higher fuel and fertilizer costs as conditions eroding the GOP position in agricultural communities. Jake Miller, a 29-year-old eastern Iowa farmer who also works in farm equipment maintenance, said people in his area are stressed “a lot” and try to avoid discussing the tariffs because conversations about them can lead to fights. “Everyone is on their toes and being very cautious about their money,” Miller said. Sand, asked about his party’s strength in a state that has not elected a Democratic governor since 2006, said: “People are ready for a change. Our economy is really struggling with tariffs.” He added: “Our message is truly resonating with people across the political spectrum.”

Iowa Republican Party chairman Jeff Kaufmann, himself a farmer, played down the political damage from the president’s trade policies. “Farmers understand that policies like tariffs that may have some short-term pain are going to have long-term gain,” Kaufmann said. He told reporters that Trump would also visit the state before November’s election. The political atmosphere has also been colored by bipartisan concern over rising cancer rates and the closure of medical facilities, which has forced longer travel distances for care; Democrats and some doctors have linked the closures to Republican-backed changes to federal healthcare funding.

To compete in red-state America, Sand has cultivated a distinctive political brand: he quotes the Bible, owns two handguns and asks audiences to sing “America the Beautiful” before speaking. He has pledged to have at least one supporter of his opponent in his cabinet if elected. That pitch resonated with some fairgoers. Deb Cronin, a 36-year-old psychology professor from Des Moines attending the fair, said she is trying to keep expectations in check in a state where Republicans have almost always been the statewide winners. “I feel very, very cautiously optimistic,” she said. “Polls have looked good before.”

Iowa’s voter-registration numbers, as of Aug. 1, underscore both parties’ calculations. The state had 712,087 registered Republicans, 528,758 Democrats and 559,741 independents, leaving the independent bloc larger than Democratic registration and central to the contests. The November vote will test whether that independent margin, combined with rural economic strain, can reshape a state the GOP has dominated for two decades.