Republican Iowa gubernatorial candidate Zach Lahn released a campaign ad Thursday saying Democrat rival Rob Sand plans to raise the average Iowan’s taxes by $7,500 a year.
The 30-second spot was provided exclusively to Breitbart News ahead of its public release. Filmed on Lahn’s farm in Belle Plaine, it opens on rising costs before cutting to an attack on Sand, the state auditor and Democrat nominee for governor. The ad casts Sand as a billionaire out of touch with working families.
In it, Lahn ties the cost of gas and groceries to his opponent and delivers the central charge directly to camera.
“But Rob Sand wants to raise your taxes by $7,500 a year. You can look it up. He is a billionaire. He doesn’t get what regular folks go through. He’s opposed tax cuts his whole career,” Lahn says in the ad. “I’m going to do everything in my power to help Iowa families as governor, because I know how hard you work. Iowa First.”
Lahn’s campaign argued the attack is grounded in Sand’s personal wealth. In a statement, campaign spokesman Dan Capodilupo said Sand’s opposition to tax cuts is easier to understand given who covers his expenses.
“It’s easy for Rob Sand to oppose tax cuts for families when someone else is paying his bills,” Capodilupo said. “His entire lifestyle and political career have both been financed by his father-in-law’s chemical fortune.”
The campaign claimed Sand married into the Lauridsen Group, Inc. (LGI), a family-owned chemical company, and asserted that Sand’s family has bankrolled his campaigns “to the tune of $13 million, the most in Iowa history.” The campaign described Sand’s operation as “effectively the seventh wholly owned subsidiary of LGI.”
Sand’s documented tax positions include a higher tax on out-of-state landowners, a ban on hedge funds and LLCs buying Iowa farmland, and ending state tax breaks for data centers. He has said he would consider an increase in the state cigarette tax to address Iowa’s cancer rates.
Sand’s campaign has cast Lahn as the outsider in the race. Press secretary Maddie Moher said Sand “has spent his career working with Republicans, Democrats, and independents to hold government accountable, uncover misspent taxpayer dollars, and deliver results for Iowans,” and would do the same as governor.
“Zach Lahn is a career political operative, and his latest attacks are a distraction from his own record and frequent flights to Kansas,” Moher said, referring to Sand’s line of attack over Lahn’s ties to Wichita.
Sand, of Decorah, has served as state auditor since 2019 and is the only Democrat holding statewide office in Iowa. He built his profile prosecuting the Hot Lotto rigging scandal as an assistant attorney general and has centered his campaign on lowering costs for Iowa families.
The ad comes as Lahn, a venture firm owner and Make America Healthy Again supporter, tries to hold an open seat Republicans have held since 2011, with Gov. Kim Reynolds not seeking reelection. Lahn won the GOP primary in a June upset, edging Trump-endorsed Rep. Randy Feenstra by less than a point.
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