In 2011, 19-year-old Zach Wahls went viral after defending his “untraditional” family in the Iowa House of Representatives. Ever since, Wahls has fought for Iowa families and workers as an, “advocate, an author, and a State Senator.” Now, Wahls is deciding to take his leadership to the next level by running for U.S. Senate.
Jen and Wahls sit down to discuss the most important issues of his campaign: tackling corruption, supporting Iowa farmers, ending the useless war in Iran, and more.
To find out more about Wahls’s campaign, click here.
Zach Wahls is an American politician and Democratic member of the Iowa Senate. First elected in 2019, he represents the 43rd district.
The following transcript has been edited for formatting purposes.
Jen Rubin
Hi, this is Jen Rubin, editor-in-Chief of The Contrarian. We are delighted in our effort to provide you full coverage of the 2026 elections, to bring you Zach Wahls. He is a state senator from Iowa, and he is running in the Democratic primary with hopes of replacing Joni Ernst, who is currently the U.S. Senator. Welcome, Zach, nice to meet you.
Zach Wahls
Good morning, Jed. Good to be here.
Jen Rubin
You were the youngest state senator, I think you’re still the youngest state senator, in Iowa, and you came on the radar screen in a very interesting way. Tell us about your story.
Zach Wahls
Sure, so I was, kind of first brought to national prominence, if you will, when I gave a short speech in 2011 to the Iowa legislature defending my two moms, Jackie and Terry, my parents. Who were able to get married in Iowa after Iowa’s 2009 state Supreme Court decision recognizing marriage equality in our state. Two years later, I was a sophomore at the University of Iowa studying civil engineering, and Republicans in Des Moines were trying to reverse that decision by amending our state constitution. I don’t think anyone ever wants to find themselves in the position of having to defend their family from powerful politicians, but when that was what I had to do. that was what I had to do.
So I went to Des Moines, and I told them something about family, and what it meant to me, and to my moms, and the fact that we did not appreciate them trying to use our family to divide us against each other. I was just as surprised as everybody else when the video of that speech went viral. It kind of turned my life totally upside down. But it was something that, you know, has, I think, given a lot of other folks the courage to help speak up and fight for themselves and their families. It was also, Jen, how I met my wife. At the time, she was writing in New York City, for a feminist website called Feministing, and she was on blog duty when that video went viral, and the headline she put on her article was, Marry Me, Zach Walls. And now our son turns 2 years old here in about 2 weeks.
Jen Rubin
Very good. Well, that worked. An interesting proposal. You have, as you say, two moms. One of them has been diagnosed with MS, and the other is a long-time nurse union member. Tell us about each one of them, and what you think you’ve learned, gained from them, as a political figure, based upon your life experience.
Zach Wahls
Yeah, so my mom, Terry was a fifth-generation Iowa farm girl, grew up on our family farm in northeast Iowa, in Clayton County, the Driftless region, beautiful, beautiful part of our state. And, you know, even though I didn’t grow up on the farm, she and my mom, Jackie, who’s from central Wisconsin, were really intentional about raising my sister and me with, the same values that they were raised with. Some of my most, you know, vivid early memories are sitting around the dinner table. My parents each month would have a different value that we would have to discuss and share examples of. Before we were able to dig in, and I’m—you can’t tell because I’m sitting down— I’m 6’5”, so I was a growing boy at that point, and I was always hungry, so always had, you know, keep an eye out for what are those examples that we’re seeing throughout the day. And, you know, the value would change each month, you know, courage, discipline, perseverance, honesty, friendship, were some of the things that we talked about. A lot of the same values that I learned in the Boy Scouts on my way to becoming an Eagle Scout. And I’ll just tell you, I think we could certainly use some of those values in the U.S. Senate once again. We can all see what’s happening right now, and I think folks here are ready for a change. And Terry was diagnosed with MS.
Jen Rubin
Tell us about what your experience with the health insurance and the health system has taught you about healthcare in America.
Zach Wahls
Yeah, you know some of my — and so my mom was diagnosed with MS when I was 8 years old, and that was a hard thing to experience, right? Your parents are, of course, people you look up to, and when we got that diagnosis, you know, on the one hand, it was almost a relief to have something to be able to say. what it was, because, you know, I had noticed her stumbling and falling, and that she was clearly having some challenges, and so when she finally got the diagnosis, it at least gave us something that we could kind of focus on. But then I also learned that MS is a devastating disease.
She wound up spending several years in a wheelchair. And I also saw the intersection of how having that challenge, that disease. Combined with the fact that we are from a non-traditional family, we… they were treated differently. Even though they both work in medicine, they were treated differently by their colleagues in medicine because their relationship was not normal. didn’t have the same protections that other married couples, you know, had at that time. They wouldn’t have the chance to get married until 2009, and that was, you know, several years after, almost a decade after my mom had been diagnosed. You know, one of the other things that happened, and you kind of alluded to this, was that my mom, Jackie, was laid off from the University of Iowa Hospital, in 2009 during the Great Recession. But it was the union contract that SEIU had negotiated on her behalf that helped ensure that we were able to have the stability that we needed until she was able to get her next job at the VA hospital.
She currently works at the outpatient clinic here in Coralville, actually not too far from where our campaign office is right here in the state. And so I certainly learned at an early age what it feels like when bad things happen to good people, and you know, that was a time in 2009 when our government was more focused on bailing out big banks and protecting, you know, hardworking families. And at the same time, you know, there were politicians trying to use a culture war issue, like marriage equality to try to divide us and have us fighting against each other. And, you know, I look around today, Jen, and I see a lot of the same things happening today. During my time in the State Senate, I’ve always sought my job as a state legislator is to be a champion and a voice for people who don’t have fancy lobbyists, or, you know, the ability to make big campaign contributions to, you know, politicians. And I’ve always thought that my most important responsibility is to find those people who need that champion to work for them relentlessly, to try to get as much done as we can, because, you know, back in 2009, we would have really loved to have that for ourselves, and I certainly think that that’s got to be the most important responsibility of any legislator, whether you’re at the State Senate or the U.S. Senate.
Jen Rubin
Iowa has its challenges. It’s an aging population. Young people are not staying in Iowa. The farm economy is in real trouble even before the tariffs. Now it’s really been hit. We just got word that inflation is up, growth is down, and now there’s a war going on. What’s been the impact on Iowa that you’ve seen firsthand?
Zach Wahls
You’re absolutely right. The ag economy in Iowa had several tough years, and this was before, 2025, which really made a lot of things a heck of a lot worse, and now, obviously this war with Iran, we’re all seeing the increases in fuel costs, diesel in particular, which is used for basically every piece of farm equipment, and implement. You’re looking at fertilizer costs, about half of the world’s nitrogen-based fertilizer moves through the Strait of Hormuz. And so you’re gonna see already… and you know, a lot of farmers have, or many at least, have gotten their, fertilizer costs, you know, set for this planting season before these you know, price increases kicked in. If they stay elevated, that is going to have a huge impact on folks here later on this year. You know, look, at a high level, I think, you know, for the last 50 years, the fundamental approach to ag policy in this country, going back to the Nixon administration, has been get big or get out.
You know, the family farm that my mom grew up on in the 50s. about 200 acres. That was very normal for an Iowa family farm at that time. Since then, you know, the average size of an Iowa farm has more than doubled, and the average number of acres that a farmer is actually responsible for farming has gone up way higher than that. And I think fundamentally, what we’re seeing right now is, you know, increased consolidation. We see this in the farm economy, we see this in land ownership, and it is not working for our state, and frankly, it’s not working for most rural or heartland states like Iowa. And so, as we think about what does the future of the farm economy, of food policy in this country look like, I think it is really important that we understand that this approach to get big or get out, it may have been great for yields. and efficiency, but it has had tremendous costs in so many other ways.
And in fact, Jen, I think my mom would probably tell you that at least one of the contributing factors to her MS was the fact that growing up on a farm, you know, into the 70s and into the 80s, when it was, you know, increasingly this kind of really intensive chemical approach, probably was a contributing factor to a part of her disease. And you look at the fact that Iowa today leads the country In terms of our growth in cancer rates, we’re number two overall, and we know that there is a link between the runoff that we are seeing from agriculture and what’s going into our water. And I want to be really clear, this is not the fault of Iowa farmers, this is the fault of decision makers in DC that have created this system of incentives that have put farmers into an impossible decision. I know all else being equal, most farmers would prefer not to use, you know, cancer-causing chemicals that poison themselves or their family or their community. But unfortunately, they are just as stuck as everybody else is in the system that has been built around us, and that’s exactly why we need some change in the U.S. Senate.
Jen Rubin
Climate change is also a big problem in agriculture, increasingly extreme weather, and the fact that this administration has ignored, denied the problem. Talk to us about how that has impacted, and the difficulty that comes from being continually dependent, aside from the war, on fossil fuels.
Zach Wahls
Absolutely. So what I would tell you—so we’ve been to 66 of Iowa’s 99 counties. We just did our 250th campaign event earlier this week. Everywhere we go, as you can imagine, increasing costs are a huge concern that we hear in a variety of different parts of the economy. And a lot of people are connecting the dots between things like increased energy costs and the cuts to investments in clean energy. I was a national leader when it comes to wind generation, increasing growth in utility-scale solar. And the fact that the renewable energy investments from the IRA were ended when Ashley Henson, my Republican opponent in this race, voted for the big, beautiful bill. People can see the connection between that vote and increase in cost for the electricity, which is happening all over our state.
People see the connection between the extreme weather events and increasing costs for insurance. We had, this is about 6 years ago, a derecho, which is a massive straight-lined windstorm, almost like an inland hurricane, came through our state, did billions of dollars of damage. And people understand that that storm was worse in part because of what has been happening to our climate. And I will tell you that most Iowans understand that there is a direct connection between these things and the fact that you are seeing these costs increase, and so we think it is really important to restore those investments in clean energy.
I think it is also really important that we’re investing in more resilient infrastructure. We were in southwest Iowa, this was about 6… 5 months ago. now, meeting with local community leaders there, and one of the things that we heard was that, and this is a community that had been devastated by flooding over the last several years, is they’ve been trying to get funding from the federal government to build and, you know, strengthen their infrastructure to mitigate flooding in the future. That grant application was basically put on an infinite hiatus because one of the Doge, you know, kids running around saw the word resilient in this infrastructure program, and thought that resilient was some kind of a DEI concept, not talking about infrastructure. And so, just a perfect illustration of how the recklessness of this administration has been having real consequences for people here on the ground.
Jen Rubin
You mentioned the big, ugly bill. One of those provisions included, of course, enormous cuts to Medicaid, which are going to impact rural hospitals. What are you hearing around the state in terms of the healthcare system, how that’s going to be affected, particularly in rural areas?
Zach Wahls
Already affecting Jen. We have seen multiple hospital systems and clinics announce closures. About 60% of Iowa’s rural hospitals were operating in the red before Medicaid’s… it’s called the Directed Payments Program kicked in, and we went from 60% in the red down to, like, 10%. And we actually went to Joni Ernst’s hometown in Red Oak, Iowa. We met with the Montgomery County Memorial Hospital leadership. They describe Medicaid’s, that program that I just mentioned, these are their words, our salvation. And that is the program that Joni Ernst and Ashley Hinson voted to cut by $800 billion.
Right now, the state of Iowa is facing a massive shortfall because of the implications of that for funding our Medicaid program, and Republicans in Des Moines are scrambling to figure out how they’re going to make up for that shortfall. it’s a huge issue. And what I think people, you know, are starting to increasingly connect the dots is, it doesn’t matter if you are not on Medicaid, this is still going to impact you, because Medicaid has been a lifeline for a lot of these rural hospitals, these critical access hospitals. federally qualified health centers, those are, you know, the Medicaid funding is what keeps those doors open, so even if you’re not on Medicaid, these are having a profound impact on people all over our state, and it is especially acute in small town and rural Iowa. And another issue, Jen, for a lot of these rural communities. is the fact that you’ve seen, pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, put an enormous amount of pressure on small and independent pharmacies. If you look at a map of Iowa, where these communities have lost a small or independent pharmacy over the last 5 years, the entire state just lights up. It is a huge issue, and it means that Iowans are having to drive further and further to get access to basic, you know, prescription medication that for so many people is an important part of maintaining their health and well-being.
Jen Rubin
You seem like a very nice guy, Zach. Why do you want to go to the U.S. Senate? They’re crazy and at each other’s throats, and you deal with an opposition party, frankly, that really has kind of given up on democracy, given up on objective reality. Why would you want to go?
Zach Wahls
One of my most vivid memories from when I was, as younger. I was 13 years old. So 2004, I was in the 8th grade, and one of my homework assignments for social studies class was to watch the Republican National Convention that year. And… you know, we had to watch the speeches and then come into class the next day to talk about it. And I remember, like it was yesterday, watching these very powerful political leaders in our country get up and talk about the wars in Afghanistan, in Iraq, the global war on terror in one breath, and then in the very next breath, talk about the threat of gay marriage. And the realization, as I’m watching these speeches, that they’re talking about my family. And I remember how scared I felt. And then how much shame I felt the next day, because I did not have the courage to speak up in that class. And that feeling stuck with me, and just, like, how alone did I felt, how it felt to be kind of the target of your own government, not looking out for us, but coming after us.
And that was why in 2011, when I had the chance to go speak up, I had the courage to do it, to be that voice, so I had to do it then. And it was why I kept doing it when the video of that speech went viral, and it’s exactly why I ran for the State Senate in 2018. And I look around at what’s happening today, like I said earlier, being that voice for people in my district, now across our entire state, who need someone to fight for them, that’s exactly what I’ve done in the State Senate, and I’ve never been… wanted to back down from a fight just because it was tough, but I’ve also been able, to your point, to be able to build some real relationships across the aisle and get things done when those opportunities are there, which is not as often as I would like. But that’s what Iowans are looking for in their next U.S. Senator.
They want someone who’s not just going to toe the party line. I’ve been someone who’s been willing to challenge my own party and are national party leadership when I think that’s the right thing to do. And I’m not going to be a rubber stamp like Ashley Hinson is for policies coming out of this White House that are devastating our state. Representative Hinson has voted on 4 different occasions to keep these tariffs in place. She voted for the Medicaid cuts, voted for the energy cuts, voted to cut food assistance, voted to cut Elon Musk’s taxes. I don’t think that Elon Musk’s taxes are too high. I think they’re far too low, and I think the vast majority of Iowans agree. And that is exactly why I think that we’re going to defeat Ashley Henson in November. We have a message that’s resonating with people. People are hungry for leadership, a new vision for our state. That’s why when we filed our nominating petitions to get on the ballot earlier this week, I’m really proud. We had almost triple the number of signatures that were required under law. And 15% of our signers are registered independents and Republicans. People are ready for change here.
Jen Rubin
Wow. One of the things that has been absent, in the last year and a half is Congress altogether. We used to have a Congress that would push back against an executive. very little oversight on the war, none on corruption, dragging their feet on the Epstein files. as someone who, if you win, would face still a Republican administration with some very questionable policies and some really problematic legal and ethical problems, what would you see your role in terms of oversight and defending interests of ordinary Iowans?
Zach Wahls
Well, I think there’s two different pieces there, Jen, right? Number one is Congress actually embracing its role as a co-equal branch of government. The legislative body has real responsibilities to checking both the executive branch and the judicial branch. And then, of course, as you just mentioned, being willing to take on that corruption head-on. When it comes to the legislative responsibilities, I’ve always thought my responsibility as a legislator is to represent my constituents, my people. to the government. And I see way too many legislators who think it’s their job to represent the government to the people, and that is exactly backwards. And so, for me, maintaining that accessibility, continuing to travel across the state, do the town halls. to actually listen to people who feel like they are being ignored and overlooked, frankly, by both parties right now in Washington, D.C, is something that is extraordinarily important to me, and it’s why I do what I do.
And then second, I will tell you, you know, we spent the first two months of this campaign in what I kind of describe as the listening phase. It’s one of the things that I really learned representing small town and rural Iowa. I had two pivot counties in my district that voted for Barack Obama in 2012, Donald Trump in 2016, and Zach Walz in 2018 when I first ran for the State Senate. And one of the things that I learned is that when you show up and you listen, people are gonna share a lot more than you might think, and corruption, like you just said. really emerged as one of those things that we heard during that listening phase. People are tracking, you know, this Trump family enriching themselves to the tunes of billions of dollars with this cryptocurrency scam. They were very upset. You know, farmers are, by disposition kind of a pretty reserved people.
The amount of anger that I heard when this administration was bailing out Argentina, selling out our cattlemen. People were absolutely outraged. You see what is currently happening now, with this, you know, this massive influence of these super PACs, billionaires who are spending hundreds of millions of dollars, billions of dollars to influence our elections. Everywhere we go, we talk about the need to overturn Citizens United, to ban members of Congress from trading stocks or cryptocurrencies while serving in office. And I’ve made a commitment to only serve two terms. I’m a very strong believer in term limits. In this state, we know that rotating the crops is good for our soil. I happen to believe it’s good for the United States Senate as well. And what I would tell you, Jen, is that those three things are supported by the vast majority of Democrats, Independents, and Republicans.
And we are building a coalition that says, look, we may not agree on every single issue, but if you agree with us that we need to build an economy that actually works for the middle class, the working class, for retired Iowans. And that we need to expand economic opportunity for rural states like Iowa, and you share our belief that there is a direct connection to what is happening in our economy right now, and the corruption in Washington, D.C, and we need to take that corruption head on. Again, we may not agree on every issue, but if you agree with us on those two things, we want you in this campaign and a part of our coalition.
You know, for too long, unfortunately, the Democratic Party has been frankly, more focused on pushing people out rather than bringing people in. That doesn’t mean that we compromise on our values, or we throw people under the bus. It means that we have to lead with our values instead. We have to put that emphasis on the issues that so many Iowans care the most about, and understand that when you have economic security, that’s how you make social progress. And so I think that is something that’s really been resonating with people. I think it’s exactly why we’re going to win in November.
Jen Rubin
Last question for you. Rather than change their policies or try to address affordability, Republicans have latched on the idea of the SAVE Act, which is basically a giant voter suppression bill. if you’re a married woman who’s changed her name, if you don’t have access to a passport, which most Iowans, I assume, do not, that’s going to create great havoc. What’s your view on that, and why do you think Republicans are doing that right now?
Zach Wahls
Yeah, look, obviously I’m strongly opposed to the SAVE Act and think that in its current, you know, incarnation, it would be massively disenfranchising to millions and millions of American women and many other people who would not be able to obtain the requisite, you know, documents to, you know, get registered to vote under these new proposed rules. Look, I think that they’re doing it because They’ve, you know, I think, is it, Scarface? You know, never get high in your own supply. There is this, like, real, you know, belief that they have kind of convinced themselves of, that there’s this massive voter fraud that is out there, for which there’s obviously no evidence. Donald Trump lost in court, I think, 83 times after the 2020 election, trying to prove, fraud that didn’t exist.
And I think that everybody can agree, of course we want free safe, fair elections. People who are not eligible to vote should not be allowed to vote. But this is obviously a cure that is much worse than the disease, which in this case doesn’t actually exist. And so I think that, you know, they have basically spun themselves up trying to basically defend a lie that Donald Trump told in 2020, that they’ve continued to tell themselves even after he won in 2024. And now they’re kind of, it’s the, kind of, a little bit the dog that caught the car. And I think that if they actually do move this forward, there will be a significant backlash, and I think the consequences may be somewhat more asymmetric than they realize. And I think that, you know, there’s certainly reasons to think that it wouldn’t hold up in court, and I… it’s not clear to me if they actually have the votes to pass it in the Senate at all. But I do think that there’s, some obviously, you know, very serious reasons for concern about the legislation, and it’s kind of going the wrong direction in terms of strengthening our democracy. This would clearly weaken it.
Jen Rubin
So, if people want to find out more about your campaign, what do they do, and when do they have to get registered, when do they have to vote, if they want to participate in the primary?
Zach Wahls
Absolutely. So, you can go to ZachWalls.com, that’s Z-A-C-H-W-A-H-L-S. You can also just Google Zach Walls, and it doesn’t really matter how you spell it, Google will get you to the right place. I’ll tell you, our primary election is on June 2nd. Iowa has closed primaries. However, we have same-day voter registration. You do have to bring photo ID, but you can register same day. We have a lot of independents, and even some Republicans, who are going to be registering to vote in our primary in support of our campaign, which I’m really honored by. We also have early votes starting. I kinda can’t believe this is true, in 59 days, so it’s gonna be here before we know it.
Jen Rubin
Wow. Well, best of luck. Thanks so much for spending time with us, and we’ll have you back and talk about the progress of the campaign, and if you’re the nominee, we’ll talk about the general election as well. Thanks so much for joining us.
Zach Wahls
Sounds good. Thanks, Jen.
