Zach Lahn just changed the Iowa GOP playbook
In the biggest upset of this primary cycle so far, businessman and farmer Zach Lahn defeated four other candidates in the Iowa Republican gubernatorial primary, including U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra, who received President Trump’s late endorsement.
Lahn won by less than one percentage point and fewer than 1,700 votes out of nearly 215,000 cast. He fused together evangelicals, MAHA voters, a Turning Point USA endorsement, and late encouragement from yours truly for Iowa Republicans to vote strategically against Feenstra, who ran the most cynical campaign I have ever seen.
Even when Trump endorsed against him, Lahn was still the candidate saying the most Trumpian things to the base. That was all that mattered.
Back in February, Brent Buchanan, one of the best pollsters of the 2024 cycle, published research arguing that Republicans’ secret weapon for the 2026 midterms could be a fusion of MAHA messaging with traditional conservative themes. He added that “most Republican candidates are too cautious to grab it.”
Enter Lahn.
His issue-driven success may signal that the personality-driven retail politics that long defined Iowa, thanks to its first-in-the-nation presidential caucus status, is fading.
When I endorsed Adam Steen early in this gubernatorial primary, I had never met Lahn. I had never even heard of him. I chose Steen because he fit the kind of candidate Iowa Republicans have traditionally rewarded: high integrity, strong character, serious faith, and real governing experience.
Steen had essentially been the chief operating officer of Iowa for the past five years. He seemed like one of us during Republican Kim Reynolds’ popular and successful governorship. That level of trust and connectivity is what Iowa conservatives have long craved, and it helps explain why Pat Robertson, Mike Huckabee, and Rick Santorum found success here over the years.
In almost any earlier political era, Steen probably would have been where Lahn is now.
But the electorate has changed. Many evangelicals overlooked Trump’s past because they liked where he stood on the issues. They cared less about the résumé of the salesman than the sales pitch in front of them. In the final month of the primary, more Iowa voters answered the question “Do you know what time it is?” with one name: Zach Lahn.
Even when Trump endorsed against him, Lahn was still the candidate saying the most Trumpian things to the base. That was all that mattered.
Issues, not background.
That is likely where Republican politics will stay as the Fox News generation fades and the GOP gets younger. Younger Republicans include more people from broken homes, more people who have gone through divorce, more people who came to faith later in life, and more voters carrying baggage that no longer fits the old Pleasant Valley Sunday model.
They are not looking for perfect biographies. They want results.
That hunger for results was strong enough to overcome Trump’s 11th-hour endorsement of Feenstra.
And yes, Trump’s endorsement helped. The president took a candidate whose negatives had climbed 20 points in the final three months and, in less than four days, gave him at least a 10-point bump without major media assistance. That should have finished Lahn.
But Iowa Republicans decided, with some irony, that the candidate Trump endorsed could not be trusted on Trump’s own issues as much as the candidate Trump opposed.
To be honest, the risk I took by supporting Lahn in the campaign’s final days had nothing to do with confidence in how that dynamic would play out. But here we are. For the sake of the state where my children are raising my grandchildren, I am grateful it ended this way.
Lahn had enough independent wealth to make himself visible and viable, no matter when or how Trump weighed in. With the right message on the right issues, he found the secret sauce.
So to Iowa Democrats and their Trojan horse candidate Rob Sand, here is our message: Now we fight.
All aboard the Lahn train.
Trump endorses in pivotal Texas Senate race
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) and incumbent Sen. John Cornyn (R) are gearing up for a primary runoff later this month, and President Donald Trump has finally given his endorsement in the race.
The president wrote in a Truth Social post on Tuesday that Paxton would push many of Trump's priorities in the Senate, including ending the filibuster rule and passing the SAVE Act for voting integrity.
'Ken Paxton has my Complete and Total Endorsement to be the next United States Senator from the Great State of Texas.'
"Ken is a true MAGA Warrior who has ALWAYS delivered for Texas, and will continue to do so in the United States Senate," wrote the president.
"Ken Paxton has gone through a lot, in many cases, very unfairly, but he is a Fighter, and knows how to WIN. Our Country needs Fighters, and also Loyalty to the Cause of Greatness," he added.
The endorsement is a big blow to Cornyn's chances and will test the control the president has over the Republican Party. Trump went on to say that Cornyn was a "good man" but accused him of not being supportive enough of the president's campaign.
The winner of the runoff election on May 26 will face 37-year-old Democrat candidate James Talarico in November. Talarico defeated Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) in the Democrat primary.
Paxton responded in a post on social media.
"I am incredibly honored to have President Trump’s COMPLETE AND TOTAL ENDORSEMENT," he wrote on social media. "No one has ever fought harder for the American people than President Trump, and I look forward to championing his America First agenda in the Senate! Texas, get out and VOTE!"
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"LET’S GOOOOOOOO TEXAS!" responded BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales.
"WE HAVE ALREADY MADE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, BUT NOW, WE WANT TO MAKE OUR NATION BETTER THAN EVER BEFORE. Therefore, Ken Paxton has my Complete and Total Endorsement to be the next United States Senator from the Great State of Texas," the president concluded.
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My message to President Trump: Don’t mess with Texas politics
Texas just had a primary election, and the message from voters could not have been clearer: A large share of Republicans are done with incumbent Senator John Cornyn.
After years of frustration with the longtime senator, voters forced a runoff between Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Cornyn may have finished with the largest vote total, but the numbers behind that result tell a more revealing story.
Cornyn will now have to defend his record directly to Republican voters who have grown skeptical of his leadership.
Cornyn received roughly 907,000 votes out of more than 2 million total votes cast in the Republican primary. That means over a million Texans showed up to vote for someone other than the incumbent senator. The difference between Cornyn and Paxton was only about 26,000 votes — a razor-thin margin in a state as big as Texas.
Then there is Wesley Hunt, who drew nearly 293,000 votes. Combine the Paxton and Hunt totals, and more than 1.1 million voters cast ballots against John Cornyn.
After all the money Cornyn poured into the race, that should have been the headline.
Cornyn and his allies reportedly spent close to $100 million between campaign spending and super PAC support. Nearly $100 million to hold on to a Senate seat — and the result was a runoff. Paxton spent a fraction of that amount, about $4 million, and still came within striking distance. Put another way, Cornyn spent $129 per vote against Paxton’s $3.79 per vote.
That is not the performance of a senator who commands overwhelming support in his own party. It looks like a political establishment trying to prop up a candidate who has worn out his welcome with grassroots voters.
Yet despite the message voters sent, Washington may be preparing to rescue Cornyn anyway.
President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that he would soon make an endorsement in the runoff and would ask the candidate he does not choose to drop out of the race immediately.
You would struggle to find many people who have been as outspoken in support of President Trump as I have. I have defended him when the media attacked him and stood by him through years of political backlash. But I still take offense at anyone in the federal government trying to manipulate a Texas election.
Texas has a runoff system for a reason. When no candidate receives a majority, the top two candidates go back to the voters. It forces candidates to earn a true majority rather than slide through a divided field.
Cutting that process short to protect an incumbent senator who just failed to win an outright majority defeats the entire purpose.
It also ignores a political reality that has fueled so much frustration: Cornyn has spent years drifting away from the conservative voters he is supposed to represent.
Cornyn has cultivated a reputation as a Washington dealmaker, working across the aisle and negotiating major legislation with Democrats. That may earn praise from Senate leadership and the political class in Washington, but it has increasingly alienated conservatives back home.
Cornyn’s relationship with Trump has also been anything but consistent. During the lead-up to the 2024 election, Cornyn questioned Trump’s ability to win a general election and suggested Republicans might need a different nominee. He said Trump’s “time has passed him by” and argued the party needed someone who could appeal beyond Trump’s base.
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Statements like that do not disappear just because campaign season arrives.
Ken Paxton’s record with Trump tells a different story. When the political establishment turned on the former president after the 2020 election, Paxton stood with him. He challenged election procedures in court and took enormous political heat for doing so. Paxton absorbed the backlash anyway.
That loyalty is one reason grassroots conservatives rallied behind him in the primary.
And it brings the conversation back to the runoff itself.
Primary night showed that a majority of Republican voters were willing to vote for someone other than John Cornyn. Even after nearly $100 million in support, the incumbent could not clear the threshold needed to avoid a second round.
That fact should make Washington pause before rushing in to protect him.
The runoff exists so voters can finish the conversation they started on primary night. Cornyn will now have to defend his record directly to Republican voters who have grown skeptical of his leadership. Paxton will argue, and rightly so, that Texas deserves a senator who fights the establishment rather than manages it.
Those arguments belong in Texas, in front of Texas voters.
Cornyn has had decades in Washington to prove himself. The primary results suggest a growing number of Texans think that time has passed him by.
Trump’s primary endorsements are sabotaging his own agenda
Imagine what the Republican Party would have looked like had President Trump been endorsing conservative reformers down-ballot rather than milquetoast RINOs backed by special interests for five consecutive cycles.
In 2016, President Trump stormed the corporatist castle of the country-club GOP. But over the next five election cycles, he pulled up the rope ladder behind him. He left the reinforcements outside the gates, which crushed his ability to deliver on his promises in his first term. It also allowed generic Republicans to ride his brand while drifting away from his original America First message.
Conservatives understand that competition improves a product. When Trump protects incumbents from primary pressure, he guarantees that the party never improves.
Now he is making the same mistake in his second term by backing status-quo, corporatist Republicans in key races.
2026 is do or die
The opening months of 2026 should be the Super Bowl of primaries for the right. Vulnerable establishment Republicans and open seats sit on the board across solid red states — for Senate and governor.
Even if Republicans struggle in swing states, Trump could still lock in a generation of red-state power by backing grassroots conservatives in open seats and insurgents challenging weak incumbents.
Instead, he keeps yanking the rug out from under his own base.
Louisiana bait and switch
Over the weekend, the president endorsed Rep. Julia Letlow (R-La.) for U.S. Senate in Louisiana. Until now, Trump has refused to back conservatives against incumbents — except when he endorsed against Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Bob Good of Virginia in 2024.
So yes, Trump finally moved against Sen. Bill Cassidy, a pro-COVID-vaccine liberal wasting a conservative seat. But he waited until more conservative candidates — state Treasurer John Fleming, state Sen. Blake Miguez, and state Rep. Julie Emerson — softened Cassidy up. Then Trump picked a challenger who matches Cassidy’s worldview in a prettier package.
Letlow sides with Cassidy on government-run health care and the COVID vaccines. She also voted against penalizing FDA officials for unlawfully expanding access to mifepristone. Trump carried Louisiana by 22 points and won 57 of 64 parishes. He could have used his clout to elect a conservative stalwart like Miguez. Instead, he chose another version of the same problem.
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Governors matter now
If Democrats regain Washington, governors become the last real barrier against federal abuse. Red-state governors will matter more than ever, especially if Democrats install a weaponized Gavin Newsom-style agenda at the national level.
After Ron DeSantis turned Florida from swing state into the red-state model, Republicans should be building an entire bench of governors who make even DeSantis look tame. But Trump’s endorsement habits keep locking in mediocrity. In Florida, he is backing Byron Donalds — a favorite of the legislative RINOs who fought DeSantis for years.
Fourteen governorships are up in states Republicans should win even in a rough year: Alabama, Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming. Trump hasn’t made one bold, movement-building endorsement as he did with DeSantis in 2018. Instead, he has already pre-emptively endorsed Idaho Gov. Brad Little for a third term and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for a fourth.
Texas betrayal rewarded
Trump has started interfering even in state legislative races. In Texas, Republicans cut a deal with Democrats and installed Dustin Burrows as speaker against the will of most of the party. Burrows rewarded them by handing committees to Democrats and killing conservative priorities.
When conservatives moved to defeat the traitors, Trump carpet-bombed the effort by endorsing Burrows and his lieutenants for re-election.
Conservatives understand that competition improves a product. Trump keeps canceling that competition. When he protects incumbents from primary pressure, he guarantees that the party never improves.
Cornyn leans on outdated Trump endorsement as Paxton pulls ahead in polls
Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas reposted an outdated endorsement from President Donald Trump on Monday as the 2026 Senate primary race ramps up.
Cornyn's campaign account posted the Trump endorsement despite it being from 2020, claiming that Cornyn votes with the president "99% of the time" and vows to "fight for Texas with the President." At the same time, early polling shows Cornyn trailing primary challenger Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
A representative for Cornyn did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.
Even still, Cornyn may not be able to survive on Trump's coattails.
Ever since Paxton entered the primary race, Cornyn's campaign has focused on tethering the senator to Trump. As of this writing, the last dozen posts on his campaign account have mentioned Trump, despite the fact that the president has yet to make an endorsement in the primary.
Even still, Cornyn may not be able to survive on Trump's coattails. Paxton is currently polling 16 points ahead of Cornyn, according to a new poll from the Senate Leadership Fund published Monday. The same poll shows Paxton 10 points ahead in a three-way race with Cornyn and Republican Rep. Wesley Hunt of Texas, who is reportedly considering a 2026 Senate run.
That being said, the same poll showed that Cornyn may be a more viable candidate than Paxton in the general election against former Democratic Rep. Colin Allred of Texas, who is considering another Senate run.
Cornyn is polling just one point ahead of Allred, according to the SLF poll, while Paxton is polling six points behind the former Democratic lawmaker. Allred previously attempted to unseat Republican Rep. Ted Cruz of Texas in 2024, although he lost by nearly nine points.
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Tulsi Gabbard: I’m STILL on a Harris-Biden watchlist after Trump endorsement
Former Democratic Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard recently exposed that she had been put on the TSA’s “Quiet Skies” watchlist, which is often used for tracking potential domestic terrorists.
And after endorsing former President Trump — she’s still on the watchlist.
“I’m the most recent target for the Kamala Harris administration. For criticizing Kamala Harris, they put me on a secret domestic terror watch list, which I’m told is still operational and still going on,” Gabbard tells Glenn Beck.
But that’s not her only concern with the current and potentially future administration.
“On the issue of war and peace, which doesn’t get talked about often enough in these presidential elections, but really is core to our ability to live in a free and peaceful and prosperous society. Kamala Harris and Joe Biden have gotten us embroiled in multiple wars in different parts of the world,” Gabbard explains.
“It is directly because of their foreign policy that we sit here one spark away from nuclear war,” she continues, while Glenn notes that Kamala’s DNC speech really did make her sound like a warmonger.
“I was shocked, it was almost like part of her acceptance speech at the convention was written by John Bolton. I mean she sounded like an absolute hawk, like Lindsey Graham, when it comes to war,” Glenn says.
“It didn’t surprise me,” Gabbard explains. “It was just another proof point showing that Joe Biden hasn’t been calling the shots and making decisions over the last three and a half years. If Kamala Harris is elected president, neither will she.”
“She is the latest figurehead for the military industrial complex, the deep state, national security state, all of those who derive the mainstream propaganda media, those who derive power or profit from us being in a constant state of war, wrote those talking points.”
“And that script was fed into that teleprompter, and Kamala Harris declared it loud and proud,” Gabbard continues, adding, “So we know exactly who she’ll be working for.”
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