Lahn’s running mate has deep ties to big ag

Republican Zach Lahn is running for Iowa governor as an enemy of big agricultural companies, pledging to crack down on their use of hazardous chemicals and pesticides. His running mate may have a different view.

Lahn chose state Rep. Derek Wulf to be his lieutenant governor candidate on June 12, writing on X that “Derek has been there for Iowans and I am very proud to have him partner with me on this campaign.”

Wulf has represented parts of Black Hawk, Benton, and Tama counties in the Iowa House of Representatives since 2023. In that time, he voted to protect farm chemical producers and even attended a White House event accelerating the use of pesticides.

Wulf worked for the agricultural giant Cargill before entering politics. 

Wulf’s coziest relationship appears to be with Bayer, a company known for its pharmaceuticals even though half of its revenue comes from producing pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and seeds. Divisions of Bayer donated $1,000 to Wulf in 2024 and again in 2025. This is considered a significant corporate donation for a state House district with fewer than 32,000 people.

In 2024, the Modern Ag Alliance, an agricultural lobbying group representing Bayer, ran an ad in the Des Moines Register thanking Wulf and other state lawmakers for backing a glyphosate immunity bill. The legislation would have essentially shielded agricultural companies from lawsuits by people who became sick from glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, as long as their products carried the required warning labels.

The bill did not become law, and Lahn has pledged to veto similar legislation if elected. Critics of the bill noted that glyphosate can often drift to nearby homes, schools and playgrounds, affecting people who did not consent to having the chemical sprayed in their proximity. Glyphosate exposure has been linked to lymphoma and other cancers.

Iowa journalist Laura Belin reported that Wulf attended a Luke Bryan concert the same month the ad ran. He posed for photos backstage in front of a backdrop with the Modern Ag Alliance logo. Bayer was a corporate sponsor of Bryan’s tour.

Lahn’s campaign denies that Wulf ever supported the glyphosate bill, even though the Modern Ag Alliance said he did. The bill did not receive a House vote, meaning Wulf never officially had to go on the record as a supporter or a detractor.

Wulf cast other votes, however, that advanced agricultural company interests. In 2023, he voted for an appropriations budget that stripped state funding for water quality sensors on Iowa’s rivers and streams. Lahn’s campaign website lists curtailing waterway pollution by agricultural companies as a top priority.

In February, Wulf voted in committee to raise the threshold for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources to designate a waterway as impaired and in need of rehabilitation.

That same month, Wulf authored a law that would prohibit agricultural companies from being sued for releasing greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. Wulf initially described the proposal as an “ag friendly bill.”

Wulf attended a White House event in June where President Donald Trump signed an executive order expediting the approval of new pesticide ingredients. The order also expanded the use of chlormequat and bifenthrin, two pesticides that have been linked to reduced fertility rates and endocrine disruption.

Lahn is associated with the Make American Healthy Again (MAHA) movement and counts it as a core part of his base. Wulf’s record may jeopardize that support.

Lahn will face Iowa Auditor Rob Sand in the general election. Sand, like Lahn, has made combating the state’s rise in cancer diagnoses a focus of his campaign.

Sand’s running mate is Crawford County Supervisor and fifth-generation farmer Dave Muhlbauer.