The truth is the performance by his candidate, Rep. Randy Feenstra, is a testimony to the power of the president’s preference, Blaze Media show host and Iowa resident Steve Deace said on American Family Radio Wednesday.
A busy political night also saw incumbent Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, a Democrat, advance from the state’s open primary. She will likely face Republican upstart Spencer Pratt in the General /election.
Pratt had earned 30.4% of the vote to Bass’ 34.8% as of early Wednesday.
City Councilwoman Nithya Rama was a distant third with 22.3% as counting continues.
“Obviously God wanted five more months of me exposing all the failures of our mayor,” Pratt told a throng of reporters late Tuesday. “It’s going to be a fun ride. I hope she’s ready. I was born for this, clearly.”
Vote counting in the Los Angeles Mayor's race is expected to continue through June 26 with the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk releasing periodic updates on specific dates along the way.
The final official results must be certified by July 10 by the California Secretary of State's Office. While the County of Los Angeles has a local deadline to certify primary results by July 2, the state certification on July 10 marks the official conclusion of the primary election process.
Iowa was one of the most closely watched states because it features both an open governor's race and an open U.S. Senate race.
Feenstra, a U.S. House member, was such a bad candidate that for him to get as close as he did after a Trump endorsement that didn’t come until four days ago really speaks well of the president, Deace told show host Jenna Ellis.
Businessman Zach Lahn won the Iowa Republican gubernatorial primary, narrowly defeating Feenstra with 37.8% of the vote to Feenstra's 37.0%.
Feenstra ran a presumptuous, non-serious campaign, Deace said.
“He ran a campaign where he, on purpose avoided the voters and just thought, ‘Well, because I'm an incumbent, Trump will endorse me’ even though he has dog-cussed Trump privately and publicly for years.”
Feenstra did not participate in any debates or public forums with primary opponents. His absence from such events became a central issue of the race, with opponents and party leaders frequently criticizing him for "hiding" in Washington, D.C.
“He thought, ‘the king just will anoint me, and I can just bypass the entire primary. So in many respects, this was one of the president's most impressive shows of force to resurrect a candidate as weakened and damaged as Randy and still nearly pull this off,” Deace said.
Lahn, a political outsider, now advances to face unopposed Democratic nominee Rob Sand in November.
Outgoing Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, Iowa’s first woman governor, announced in April 2025 that she would not seek a third term and would instead spend more time with family.
She oversaw the largest tax cuts in Iowa history, transforming the state's income tax from a nine-bracket system (top rate of 8.98%) to a flat tax of 3.8%. She also eliminated taxes on retirement income and significantly reduced corporate tax rates.
The Reynolds administration saw:
- A school choice initiative.
- Consolidation of government agencies to a reported savings of more than $200 million.
- An abortion ban after six weeks.
- Ban on gender-mutilation procedures for minors.
- Removal of gender identity as a protected class in the Iowa Civil Rights Act.
Lahn represents the best fit for what Deace sees as the next “coalition” — between conservative Christians and the “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) crowd — that will lead the Republican party.
“You especially see this amongst our mamas and our nanas in the Christian conservative world, the MAHA issues that are surging with post-COVID skepticism about the overall medical industrial complex vaccine industrial complex,” Deace said.
Lahn tapped into the youthful energy of a generational divide among Republicans, Deace said, making Iowa’s cancer rate an issue by tying it to some fertilizers used by large agricultural companies in the state.
He opposed H1B visas, a non-immigrant classification that allows U.S. employers to temporarily hire foreign workers in specialty occupations.
Younger voters remembering the open borders of the Biden years got on board with Lahn.
“These are things that run really a foul of a lot of the bigger donor class, and yet, those issues as a combination of slate of the campaign, so captured the imagination of our base, that it carried a completely unknown never before candidate in Zach Lahn, to victory over a sitting congressman,” Deace said.
