Rep. Randy Feenstra conceded to businessman Zach Lahn on election night in Iowa’s Republican primary for governor, ending a race that was still too close for NBC News to project. With 98% of the expected vote counted, Lahn held 37.8% to Feenstra’s 37%, and Billy Fuerst, a spokesperson for Feenstra’s campaign, confirmed the concession.
The result matters because Feenstra ran with a late endorsement from President Donald Trump and backing from the Republican Governors Association, but the support did not lift him over Lahn. If the margin holds, it would mark the first loss by a Trump-backed gubernatorial, House or Senate candidate in the 2026 midterm primaries so far, even as three other Trump-backed contenders in Georgia, Alabama and Louisiana were still headed to runoff elections later this month.
Iowa’s governor primary became a test of whether Trump’s endorsement could still settle a race when the vote was close and the count nearly complete. Feenstra never built a lead large enough to stop the rush toward a concession, and by the time the count reached 98% of the expected vote, Lahn was still ahead by less than one point. NBC News had not projected a winner, but the campaign side of the race was already over.
On the other side of the country, Democrat Antonio Villaraigosa also ended his campaign tonight, dropping out of California’s gubernatorial race after a contest in which he was one of eight candidates. He said it “didn’t turn out the way we hoped,” and added that California was at an inflection point, warning that his party and its representatives needed to take the state’s problems seriously if it was to be made “the envy of the nation and the globe” again. NBC News was still calling that race too early to call.
California’s voting process is a reminder of why some races move fast and others do not: most ballots are cast by mail, votes sent in before Election Day can arrive in one large batch, and in-person ballots in most big counties are often reported within the first hour to 90 minutes. Iowa, by contrast, had already produced a clear political break before the count was even final, and Feenstra’s concession left Trump’s endorsement looking less like a guarantee than it has in most of the 2026 midterm primaries so far.
For now, Lahn has the upper hand, Feenstra has ended his run, and the unanswered question is whether the final count will only widen a gap that was already enough to force a surrender.
