Lines of attack solidify against Iowa candidates for the general election

The field is set for candidates running in the general election and campaigns, as well as political organizations, have kicked off a series early attack ads — particularly targeting candidates portraying themselves as moderates.

In the days after the June 2 primary, candidates have quickly pivoted to early messaging before the Nov. 3 general election. Some candidates and political groups are hoping to define their opponents through campaign advertising early in the cycle, especially those entering the general election campaign season with a lower profile.

State Rep. Josh Turek, D-Council Bluffs, overwhelmingly won the U.S. Senate Democratic nomination Tuesday against state Sen. Zach Wahls. The primary result triggered Cook Political Report to move its rating of the race from a “likely Republican” to “leans Republican.” Jessica Taylor, U.S. Senate and governors editor for Cook Political Report, wrote that “the overall environment in the Hawkeye State is an increasingly favorable one for Democrats given backlash to tariffs and rising fuel and fertilizer prices as a result of the Iran War.”

While Democrats are looking at Turek’s race optimistically, he still faces a steep challenge against U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson, the Republican Senate nominee. She has consistently led in campaign fundraising and amassed support from powerful Republicans including President Donald Trump, Senate Majority Leader John Thune and U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst, who currently holds the seat.

Hinson also holds more prominence than Turek in Iowa politics, currently representing Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District in the House. Turek’s campaign and groups like the VoteVets super PAC have invested significantly in ads, beginning in the primary season, introducing Turek to voters. But Republicans are now starting their own campaign strategy to characterize Turek, who was seen as the more moderate candidate in the primary, as a liberal opposed to Republican goals on issues like immigration enforcement and tax cuts made under President Donald Trump.

Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, the Senate Leadership Fund, released an ad Thursday targeting the Democratic nominee titled “Josh Turek: Too Liberal for America.”

The ad calls Turek “America’s favorite liberal,” stating that in the state Legislature, he “voted to allow men in girls’ bathrooms and locker rooms at Iowa schools,” by voting against a 2023 law banning people from using school restrooms, locker rooms and other gender-specific facilities that do not align with their sex at birth — primarily focused on transgender individuals. The ad said Turek also “opposed school choice” by voting against the state’s Education Savings Account (ESA) program providing public funding for private school tuition and associated costs.

The ad also says Turek’s campaign has “been bankrolled by special interest groups, radical, liberal organizations, corporate PACs, and big labor.” That attack was also lobbed against Turek during the primary campaign by Wahls, who criticized the Council Bluffs Democrat for receiving support from “dark money” groups affiliated with Senate Democratic leadership.

Chris Gustafson, communications director for the Republicans’ Senate Leadership Fund, said in a statement, “Josh Turek is a Far-Left liberal who Chuck Schumer hand-picked to be nothing more than a rubber stamp for Washington Democrats. SLF will gleefully remind voters of Turek’s long record of voting against the interests of Iowans and ensure Ashley Hinson is elected as Iowa’s next U.S. Senator.”

While Hinson is coming in with higher name recognition than her opponent, Democrats are pointing to Hinson’s connections and support of Trump and GOP leadership in Congress as a reason why voters should oppose her in the general election. The Iowa Democratic Party launched a tour Thursday called “Iowa Can’t Afford Ashley,” a series of events “highlighting Ashley Hinson’s corruption and her failing record of gutting Medicaid, raising costs, and hurting women and seniors,” according to an IDP news release.

Additionally, national Democrats are planning to ramp up ads criticizing Hinson’s support of Trump policies, specifically on tariffs — a major point of concern in Iowa agriculture. Democrats will also highlight Medicaid cuts, as several rural hospitals in the state have closed or reduced services after the “One, Big Beautiful Bill” Act was signed into law in 2025.

The Senate Majority PAC, Senate Democrats’ campaign arm, made a $13.4 million television reservation for the fall focused on Hinson’s record.

Ads launch in governor’s race

Opposition ads are also starting in the Iowa gubernatorial race as Zach Lahn, a businessman and farmer, became the Republican nominee for Iowa governor. He won in an upset victory in Tuesday’s primary over U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra and three other candidates. He will face state Auditor Rob Sand, who ran unopposed in the Democratic primary, on the general election ballot.

Lahn also is coming into the general election season with lower name recognition than Sand, who is currently the only Democrat to hold statewide elected office in Iowa, and gained national attention earlier in his career for his work uncovering a lottery scam.

Lahn has not previously held elected office. Before running for governor, he worked for the Koch-affiliated advocacy group Americans for Prosperity, and previously lived in and was a registered voter in Kansas. He registered to vote in Iowa in 2024, the Kansas Reflector reported — allowing him to meet Iowa’s two-year residency requirement for his 2026 gubernatorial bid. In Kansas, Lahn launched a private pre-K through 12th-grade school named Wonder, financed by the son of billionaire Charles Koch, Chase Koch. Chase Koch’s former wife, then Annie Koch, later divorced him and married Lahn, who also divorced his previous wife.

The Des Moines Register reported in April that Lahn frequently flew in his personal airplane from Iowa to Kansas, telling the Register, “I have a blended family, and some of my children are based out of Wichita. And I’m trying my best to be present for things. And also, we use the plane to shuttle kids back and forth from Iowa as a tool that we use.”

On Friday, Sand’s campaign launched an ad titled “Full Time.” The narrator states, “turning Iowa around will be a full-time job, but Zach Lahn isn’t even a full-time Iowan.” The ad pulls from a quote in the Register article, where Lahn said if elected he would find a “different arrangement” and “be in Iowa as much as humanly possible.”

Emma O’Brien, Sand’s deputy campaign manager, called Lahn’s response was “a disqualifying answer from someone running to be Iowa’s – not Kansas’ – next governor.”

“Iowans are dealing with some tough challenges, and they need a governor committed to Iowa to help solve them – not a frequent flyer who treats the state like a layover,” O’Brien said in a statement. “… Iowans don’t want a part-timer or political operative as their next governor, and in November, they’ll send carpetbagger Zach Lahn back to Kansas.”

Because Sand was running unopposed, Republicans have been speaking out in opposition to Sand as a candidate for several months — often criticizing him for portraying himself as a moderate or opposed to the political party dichotomy. In May, the Right Direction PAC, associated with the Republican Governors Association, launched “Failed,” an ad stating Sand “didn’t do his job” as state auditor in relation to a misallocation of $27.5 million in court debt funds caused by coding errors in the state’s case management system, corrected in 2024.

The state auditor’s office was alerted of financial irregularities by the Iowa Department of Transportation in 2022, but did not release an audit until 2024 on the issue. Sand told the House Government Oversight Committee when questioned on the subject in 2025 that because the issue was identified as a coding error — introduced through changes made to the court debt collection and distribution systems in 2020 and 2021 laws — the misallocation was not an “audit issue.”

The ad pulls from multiple TV news segments saying the auditor’s office “took no action” on the problem. KCCI, one of the TV stations which had a clip used in the ad, published a fact checking article which stated the ad omits “some context included in KCCI’s original reporting” on the issue, including that one of the reporter’s statement was explaining Republicans’ stance as they argued Sand should have been more involved in finding and correcting the problem.

Sand’s campaign called the ad “false and misleading.”

“This false attack has already been debunked, but D.C. insiders are clearly worried and are being forced to bail out their flailing candidates,” O’Brien said in a statement.