(Radio Iowa) – Unofficial results from the Iowa Secretary of State indicate nearly a fifth of the state’s registered voters participated in the 2026 Primary Election. The state website doesn’t yet show the party breakdown in that overall number, but there are clues.
212-thousand Republicans voted in the race for governor, the most for any Republican contest on the statewide ballot. The most participation from Democrats came in the U.S. Senate race, with 192-thousand total votes cast.
Zach Lahn — the Republican Party’s nominee for governor — finished just over 16-hundred votes ahead of Congressman Randy Feenstra. Lahn won 21 of the 36 counties in the fourth congressional district. Feenstra won his home county of Sioux with about 47 percent of the vote, while Lahn got 40 percent in Sioux County.
Josh Turek, the Democratic Party’s nominee for U.S. Senate — won 96 of Iowa’s 99 counties. The three counties Zach Wahls won were Johnson and Cedar Counties — which he represents in the state senate, along with Louisa County.
Primary results will become official when county boards of supervisors vote to certify their local elections.
