Overview
- Sand held his first rally as the official Democratic nominee in Des Moines on Sunday with Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, the chair of the Democratic Governors Association.
- Campaign filings show Sand’s campaign has transferred about $750,000 to the Iowa Democratic Party and the DGA has given roughly $140,000 to the state party so far.
- The Sand–Zach Lahn matchup is widely seen as one of the nation’s most competitive governor’s races because of Iowa’s budget shortfall, a weak farm economy and a local cancer crisis.
- Republicans retain structural advantages that make a Democratic flip difficult, including a roughly 200,000-person voter registration deficit and GOP control of the state legislature.
- Lahn won a crowded five-way Republican primary by positioning himself as an anti-establishment farmer-businessman who criticizes farm consolidation and corporate tax breaks.