Ag Policy Blog

This blog was originally published at 7:44 a.m. CDT on Wednesday, June 3. It was last updated with additional information at 8:17 a.m. CDT on Wednesday, June 3.

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U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra, a member of the House Agriculture Committee, lost his bid for Iowa governor, narrowly losing the Republican primary on Tuesday to a rival embraced by the "Make America Healthy Again" movement.

Feenstra also wasn't the only member of the House Agriculture Committee to lose a gubernatorial race on Tuesday. In South Dakota, Rep. Dusty Johnson, a Republican, also lost a four-way primary race and doesn't appear to have enough votes for a runoff.

A three-term congressman, Feenstra was considered the front-runner for the GOP governor's nod. He has been among the leaders in Congress pushing to adopt nationwide E15 and co-chaired the rural energy group in the House that pushed the legislation. Because of that and his work on the farm bill, Feenstra was backed by Iowa agricultural groups. Iowa Secretary of Ag Mike Naig, who also is up for re-election, had backed Feenstra as well.

In a late move last weekend, Feenstra also was endorsed by President Donald Trump, which has been considered a significant boost for GOP primary candidates. Feenstra's social media feeds brought up multiple times in the last several days of the race that he was backed by Trump. Before Tuesday's loss, Fox News had reported last week Trump-backed candidates had been undefeated in primary season, winning all 118 House, Senate and governor's races.

Feenstra, though, also had consistently skipped Republican debates and forums with other candidates throughout the primary season. That drew criticism from primary voters. Feenstra tried to dismiss the criticism, but his lack of attendance became a major focus of any news about those debates and forums.

Feenstra lost to Zach Lahn, a first-time candidate, a businessman and farmer, who built his campaign partly on going after "big ag" interests, embracing the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement and attacking foreign and corporate ownership of Iowa farmland. Lahn also highlighted concerns over Iowa's rising cancer rates on the campaign trail. Reflecting a party split, Lahn also was backed by the group Turning Point USA.

Lahn also had the backing of former Rep. Steve King, a conservative who Feenstra defeated in a 2020 primary to gain his seat in Congress. King had endorsed Lahn in April, saying he was the only conservative building momentum in the primary race.

In a race with three other candidates, Feenstra lost to Lahn 37.6% to 36.9%, or less than 1% of the vote out of more than 214,500 votes cast. The other candidates siphoned nearly 54,000 votes and Lahn ended up beating Feenstra by roughly 1,650 votes in the race.

In his victory speech Tuesday night, the Iowa Capital Dispatch reported Lahn shared the story of his family farm, how the family lost it in 2005 and how he got it back in 2014 to raise his family there.

"I fear every day we are losing the Iowa we love. We've lost 10,000 family farms since 2000. Our young people are leaving faster than 46 other states because they don't see enough opportunity here," Lahn said, according to the Capital Dispatch. "Wall Street hedge funds and foreign interests are buying and selling their land, driving up costs, so our kids are priced out of the market. They treat Iowa land like it's a commodity instead of our inheritance. They treat us like numbers, not neighbors. This is over when I'm governor."

As governor, Lahn said he would ban secret land ownership and tax hedge funds to bring money back to Iowa families as well as "take on the big ag cartels and break up their monopolies," the Capital Dispatch reported.

Lahn will face State Auditor Rob Sand, who ran uncontested in the Democratic primary. Sand reportedly has a significant war chest, but he will be trying to flip a state that has been consistently Republican in the governor's office, along with federal offices and a GOP supermajority in the legislature as well.

In South Dakota, Johnson gave up a safe congressional seat to run for governor but lost to another political newcomer, auto dealer Toby Doeden, and current Gov. Larry Rhoden, who had been lieutenant governor to Kristi Noem before last year. South Dakota Searchlight reported Johnson came in third in the race with 23% of the vote. Doeden and Rhoden will have a runoff vote in August.

Chris Clayton can be reached at Chris.Clayton@dtn.com

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