Iowa State Auditor Rob Sand, the Democratic nominee running to replace Republican Governor Kim Reynolds, agreed to a series of debates with the Trump-endorsed Republican nominee, farmer/businessman Zach Lahn.
[NOTE: Reynolds did not seek a third term.]
The series will include six “Lincoln-Douglas style” debates between Sand and Lahn and are expected to be scheduled after Labor Day. According to Lahn, when he presented the debate idea to Sand at the Iowa Capitol in the spring, Sand agreed with a high five.
Earlier this spring I met @RobSandIA during a visit to the Capitol.
During our talk I proposed a series of Lincoln-Douglas debates after the primary.
Rob agreed and high fived me.
Let’s make good on our agreement: Six Lincoln Douglas debates across the state. pic.twitter.com/Rl1FkfAH4b
— Zach Lahn (@ZachLahn) July 16, 2026
Lahn wrote that the “Lincoln-Douglas style” debate format “should be long-form policy discussions that allow the candidates to engage directly with one another on the issues facing Iowans,” and that they “should be informative conversations, not spectacles.”
But despite the high five and the “informative” debate format, there is little to suggest much agreement in the exchange.
As seen in the political ad below, when the Rob Sand campaign accused Lahn of “living in Kansas,” Lahn responded by calling Sand “one of the wealthiest men in Iowa funded by his family’s big ag business P.S. His second biggest donor was close friend of Epstein.”
I’m the only candidate running for office that’s called out big ag and big pharma for their role in the cancer crisis
Meanwhile, @RobSandIA is one of the wealthiest men in Iowa funded big his family’s big ag business
P. S. His second biggest donor was close friend of Epstein. https://t.co/39y5nWXTdA
— Zach Lahn (@ZachLahn) July 3, 2026
On Sand’s criticism of Lahn’s residence, The Kansas Reflector reported that Lahn voted in Kansas elections in the 2018, 2020 and 2022 cycles, and in 2018 co-founded the private school Wonder in Wichita, Kansas, which was financed by Chase Koch (son of billionaire Charles Koch), and his wife at the time, Annie Koch. In 2020, Lahn married Annie Koch, now Annie Lahn.
Lahn’s “second biggest donor” comment refers to a $250,000 campaign contribution to Sand made by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, who voiced regret for having visited Jeffrey Epstein’s private island in an effort to fundraise for MIT Media Lab.
Lahn’s family comment refers to Sand’s wife, Christine Lauridsen Sand, CEO of Lauridsen Group, which the Harvard Business Review describes as “a family-owned holding company with six ingredient businesses serving the global food system, including animal feed, food ingredients, pharmaceuticals, and pet food.”
In May, the Rob Sand campaign reported that in 2026 he “received more than 49,300 donations from over 26,800 individual contributors in all 99 Iowa counties,” and “teachers made up the largest group of contributors to the campaign in 2026, with more than 1,200 educators donating this year so far, followed by over 1,100 health care workers and hundreds of Iowans working in the trades and service jobs that keep our communities going every day.”