Citizen-run Iowa accountability project. We follow the money, check the claims and link the receipts. Independent. Biased in favor of the truth.
Iowa, USA
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1/8 👋 A quick introduction to Iowa First Check.
We’re an independent citizen-journalism project tracking Iowa’s 2026 governor’s race between Rob Sand and Zach Lahn.
Our goal is simple: keep facts, records and context in the discussion.
iowafirstcheck.com
Well he surely won’t spend more than the Iowa GOP has. Plus unless they plan to lose the statehouse majorities — which would be bonkers levels of unlikely — Rob Sand won’t have the ability to do what this column claims.
Opinion: Rob Sand is a déjà vu Democrat who'd spend Iowa into ruin | Opinion desmoinesregister.com/story/…
He said IF they wanted to, THEY COULD. Which, they can.
If you think they already don't, then just say "let's amend the law to make sure its explicit that they can't do this, and give someone the ability to make sure they aren't."
At his Iowa City town hall in September, Rob Sand accused Iowa's religious schools of using school voucher funds to buy alcohol.
Meanwhile, Iowa City Public Schools has overspent its capital projects fund by $45 million over the last four fiscal years.
All public schools in Iowa are legally required to perform an yearly audit and report it to Rob Sand's office.
Rob was just too busy attacking school choice parents to stop Iowa City schools from misallocating our tax dollars.
1/ Iowa’s early-voting pace pulled further ahead of 2022.
Today: 265,803 ballots received—up 57,945 since Friday and 33.3% ahead of the comparable 2022 report. Friday’s lead was 24.4%.
94 of 99 counties are ahead.
iowafirstcheck.com/early-vot…
3/ Polk County stands out: 49,129 ballots received, up 83% from the comparable 2022 report.
Within Polk:
Democrats: +57%
Republicans: +114%
No-party voters: +184%
Polk accounts for about one-third of Iowa’s additional ballots over the 2022 pace.
Iowa First Check retweeted
Actually, considering how the Iowa GOP has driven the state into the ground under single party rule, that seems to boost the Register's credibility...
You forgot about the Black Hawk County Sheriff, WCF Financial and your running mate’s parents who are also all trying to doom your campaign with LIES AND DECEIT.
The whole fucking planet is against poor little average Iowa farmer Zach Lahn. Someone hand him a Kleenex.
Zach Lahn claimed he wasn’t paid for Wonder but was. Best case scenario they are both rich liars. May well be…not sure why Lahn thinks he has any room to talk when they post about these issues and almost nothing on policies.
Rob Sand claims that he has no other income outside of his state salary.
In 2022, his salary was $103,212... That same year, he personally donated $131,000 to his Auditor campaign and an additional $30,000 to the Iowa Democrat Party.
He donated more money to his own campaign than he made as a state employee.
Rob is actively hiding how wealthy he is from Iowans-- and it's because it would reveal that he's a billionaire trying to buy an election.
Be nice to fuckwits like Gary. They don’t want to have to use words that make sense to make their points. Agree with their gibberish.
Iowa First Check retweeted
Zach Lahn - not his in-laws, ZACH- reportedly sold a $5M ski-in, ski-out mansion in Montana in Oct. ‘25.
Since June, the Republican Governors Association has donated $15.5M to Lahn (70-75% of recent cash donations).
@thomasarchitect, you need to think your attacks through.
Rob Sand’s family sold a $77M Colorado ranch in 2024.
One of the biggest sales in state history. 👀
That kind of liquidity helps explain the nearly $13 million his wife and in-laws have put into his campaign.
That’s not “grassroots.” That’s one family funding a candidate.
Vote Zach Lahn for Governor.
#LahnForGovernor #IowaFirst #LFG
Gary doesn’t know the definition of majority maybe. Its over 50%.
Rob Sand’s family donations aren’t even a plurality of his support. It is easily measurable. How did people like Gary become so fucking dumb?
Kauffman is a blabbering dumbfuck. However Rob Sand has made his stance clear on this topic, and it has angered many on the left.
.@RobSandIA wants us to believe he’s a moderate, but he’s bringing in the former Democrat Minority Leader who led the charge against banning men from girls’ sports, bathrooms, and locker rooms and prohibiting gender identity instruction in schools to stump for him. #IAGov
If I lived in Iowa, but got all my mail in Kansas, that would be wildly inconvenient.
I also thought this was a really odd defense. I assume @ZachLahn got surprised and will now have to clean it up. Like he did with the “as much as humanly possible” line.
Defense of 24 absentee ballot being mailed to Kansas is my favorite part:
“All my official mail has gone to my assistant for years,” he explained.
So his assistant is in… Kansas? #IAGov
Iowa First Check retweeted
I typically am of the thought I won’t run for Congress again in my new hometown, although it’s bluer where I am than where I ran. But then, I see another Dem candidate fall for the trans bait bullshit in a way that will not get them any additional votes but will cost them Dem votes, and I think about running again someday just so I can run an ad saying trans rights are human rights and that I’m not going to take the bait. Our trans friends are not a political inconvenience. They are 4x more likely to be victims of assault, and do not themselves pose an above-baseline threat to anyone. You can’t be the party of justice and human rights while throwing such a harmed and vulnerable community under the bus. It just doesn’t work.
17.5% of Zach Lahn’s donations have come from individuals, much lower than Rob Sand has received whether you count his whole political career or just this cycle.
So, Rob Sand is certainly closer to grassroots than Lahn is.
iowafirstcheck.com/money.htm…
Rob Sand’s family wrote him an $11M check from their fertilizer empire and called it “grassroots.” Zach Lahn loaned his own campaign $2.5M, took the RGA money every nominee gets, and still gets the “divorce settlement” smear from the NYT.
One’s running on Iowa issues. The other’s running on his in-laws’ checkbook.
Iowa First Check retweeted
By this logic, Annie Lahn and 3 of the children Zach claims to father are from a billionaire family. Not hypothetical billionaires; Forbes list billionaires.
.@ZachLahn: "My opponent is from a billionaire family and they're trying to buy this election... but as we go around the state,... we're seeing more and more consolidation and more people come to our team and we believe that this is a race we're going to win on November 3."