“Iowa First” Republican gubernatorial candidate Zach Lahn maintains a home in Kansas and flies to the state frequently in a plane he owns as part of an LLC.
In an interview, Lahn told the Des Moines Register the home and the flights are necessary to see some of the children he and his wife have from previous marriages.
“I have a blended family, and some of my children are based out of Wichita,” he said. “And I’m trying my best to be present for things. And also, we use the plane to shuttle kids back and forth from Iowa as a tool that we use.”
Lahn has touted his experience as a pilot, promising to use his personal plane to help him reach voters across Iowa.
“I plan to take my plane to all 99 counties,” he said at his campaign launch. “And under the wings, I put ‘Iowa first,’ because I want to remind people of what this is all about.”
Lahn has used the plane to campaign, including flying to each of Iowa’s four Republican Party district conventions April 25. Other gubernatorial candidates, who traveled by car, were unable to make it to all four events spread across the state.
He is a certified pilot through the Federal Aviation Administration. A limited liability corporation registered to his address in Belle Plaine is listed as the registered owner of the small aircraft.
Since Oct. 1, 2025, about a month before Lahn launched his campaign, publicly available flight logs show that plane making 37 individual flights to Wichita, Kansas.
Across 224 days, that averages to about one flight every six days.
Lahn said he is not always the one to fly the plane, but he appreciates being able to make the roughly 60- to 90-minute flight to see the children or attend events.
“I’m in Iowa the majority of the time, a tremendous amount of time,” he said. “And I have an airplane, and when I need to go down for things with the kids, it’s an hour flight for me. And so I just try to make sure I’m fulfilling that obligation as best as I can. … I have no worries that we’ll be able to fulfill every duty we need to on the campaign or as governor.”
He said the current situation would not continue if he’s elected governor.
“No, we’ve already had discussions about this and how that would work,” he said. “But if I’m elected governor, it would be a different arrangement, and we’d work it out. Because, you know, we’d be in Iowa as much as humanly possible.”
He said he considers himself a full-time resident of Iowa. He purchased his family farm in Belle Plaine in 2014, and he said he made the full move back to the state in 2023.
Voter registration records show he was previously registered to vote in Iowa and last voted in 2016 before re-registering to vote in Iowa in 2024. He has voted in the 2024 general election and a 2025 local election.
Lahn made the move after living in Wichita, where he and his wife, Annie, co-founded Wonder, a nontraditional private school.
Annie was previously married to Chase Koch, the son of billionaire businessman Charles Koch. The school was created as a nonprofit supported by Annie and Chase Koch.
According to the available data, which was tracked in Coordinated Universal Time, the plane in Lahn’s ownership spent 75 nights in Wichita since Oct. 1, 2025.
Comparatively, the data show the plane spent 51 nights in Belle Plaine and 44 nights in other Iowa towns.
There are 15 nights that indicate the plane was in other states. And for about a month early this year, the plane appeared to stay grounded in Des Moines.
“Blended families are complicated,” Lahn said. “And this is something I’ve discussed on the campaign trail. And it’s a reality of life. And we do the best we can as parents, and that’s what I’m doing.”
Lahn is one of five candidates running in Iowa’s Republican primary race for governor. He has mounted a serious bid, funneling $2 million of his own money into the race, but he started the campaign as the least-known of the group.
Each of the other Republicans on the ticket — state Rep. Eddie Andrews, U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra, former state Rep. Brad Sherman and former state administrator Adam Steen — have previously held public or state office.
Lahn is a businessman and entrepreneur, and he farms in Belle Plaine.
Brianne Pfannenstiel is the chief politics reporter for the Des Moines Register. She writes about campaigns, elections and the Iowa Caucuses. Reach her at bpfann@dmreg.com or 515-284-8244. Follow her on X at @brianneDMR.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: GOP governor candidate Lahn frequently flies to second house in Kansas
Reporting by Brianne Pfannenstiel, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
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