Republican infighting in Iowa points to GOP peril after Feenstra loses governor’s race

Jun. 3, 2026, 12:53 AM EDT

Republicans have not lost a gubernatorial race in Iowa since George W. Bush was president.

So the anxiety within the GOP as voters went to the polls Tuesday was, on its face, hard to explain. But the projected defeat of Rep. Randy FeenstraTrump’s endorsed candidate, in the GOP primary for governor was an early sign of just how unpredictable voters may be in Iowa this year.

In the two decades since a Democrat last won the governorship, in 2006, Iowa has gone from presidential battleground to reliably red-state terrain, carried three times by Donald Trump. In most election cycles, that record would all but guarantee a comfortable race for Republicans this fall — even in a year when momentum is building on the left.

Not this year.

What happened in Iowa on Tuesday was a clear test case of just how far the president’s blessing and the sway of partisan identity can carry a candidate over the finish line. Trump’s endorsement has essentially been the gold standard in Republican politics, often making the difference between a candidate being a contender or becoming a has-been. Sometimes, though, Trump simply sides with the candidate who seemed to be the most likely to be the primary winner.

His nod to Feenstra days before Iowa’s gubernatorial primary, however, carried the marks of a late-breaking rescue mission — especially given that other rivals were well positioned as Iowans headed to vote. Democrats have had to deal with none of those worries on their end: State Auditor Rob Sand has run effectively unopposed for months, free to focus on the general election and that alone.

“Rob Sand is, he’s a very dangerous candidate, he’s running against both parties,” said Bob Vander Plaats, a conservative evangelical leader in the state. While he backed GOP candidate Adam Steen, Vander Plaats had concerns about Feenstra. “I really believe Randy gives us our biggest, biggest risk of having Rob Sand be governor,” he said ahead of Tuesday’s primary.

Even with Trump’s endorsement, Feenstra fell short in the GOP primary. The Republican congressman conceded the race Tuesday night to opponent Zach Lahn, making for one of the few times this year that Trump’s endorsed candidate has been rejected by Republican voters.

Feenstra entered the race as the front-runner. Back in 2020, he helped both national and Iowa Republicans when he defeated deeply controversial Rep. Steve King in a Republican primary — a victory that catapulted him to Washington. With a low-key approach and national connections forged in Congress, he appeared primed to help his party hold the state and continue its gubernatorial-race dominance; federal filings show that earlier in his campaign he moved more than $1 million from his congressional campaign to boost his statewide ambitions.

But the primary bruised him. While Sand glided toward November, Feenstra spent the spring fending off a crowded field.

“I feel pretty comfortable saying that we can beat anybody that they put against us,” Sand told reporters Tuesday. “I think most Iowans recognize that the state’s going in the wrong direction.”

In a five-way Republican race, Feenstra’s most formidable challenge came from Lahn, who tried to claim the “outsider” lane. Lahn lent his campaign more than $2 million and drew support from the late Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point Action organization and an arm of the Make America Healthy Again movement — the kind of backing that can scramble expectations in Republican circles.

Trump noticeably sat out the race until late last week, when he posted an endorsement on social media touting Feenstra. Despite all that, even after Trump endorsed the congressman, Lahn said last weekend he did not believe Feenstra could beat Sand this fall.

“Rob Sand has run a campaign that he’s been out with the people for a very long time, the complete opposite of what Randy Feenstra’s done,” Lahn said in an interview. “This is what’s at stake. If Randy Feenstra’s the  nominee on June 3, it affects every other race for Republicans in the state. That’s how important this is. It affects the U.S. Senate race, the House races, some of which will be in razor-thin margins.”

Ahead of polls closing Tuesday night, Feenstra campaign spokesman Billy Fuerst claimed in a message that “Randy Feenstra earned President Trump’s complete and total endorsement to be the next Governor of Iowa because President Trump knows that Randy is the only proven conservative who can defeat Extreme Liberal Rob Sand and keep Iowa red.”

Electability is often a concern in competitive primaries. But the aftermath in Iowa may prove especially difficult for Republicans. While the Iowa governor’s race is important to the state, it also could have an outsize influence on congressional control as well. A strong performance by Sand could prove pivotal in also helping Democrats as they try to win the state’s open U.S. Senate this fall, as well as to potentially flip as many as three congressional districts.

Given the narrow control Republicans have in the House, those seats could become incredibly important. And while winning the Senate race is more of a long shot, it is one of just a few that Democrats realistically have a chance of winning in the fall as they try to overcome a difficult picture to take back the Senate.

All of this means that after a few cycles where its national importance has faded, Iowa could become a tipping point for either Republicans maintaining sway for the final two years of Trump’s time in power or seeing it slip away.

Either outcome may depend on just how much Sand stresses Republicans in Iowa as he runs on a message that picks at partisan politics generally and that tries to bring back some relatability back to a Democratic Party whose reputation as caring about ideology over economic woes has become alienating in pockets of the Midwest and in key battleground states.

“[Sand’s] got the wind at his back right now, because he’s not being attacked relentlessly like he will be after the primary,” said David Kochel, an Iowa Republican strategist. “I think once this race defines and once you kind of can show that he is part of a national Democratic brand, I think it gets a lot tougher for him to win a state like Iowa.”