Rob Sand's claimsvs his record

Fact

Billionaire Rob Sand opposed the 2022 state income tax cuts that put thousands of dollars back into Iowans' pockets. He wants to roll them back. If Rob had his way we would have higher taxes on tips, overtime, and Social Security. Sand's agenda would cost the average Iowa family of four an estimated $7,500 every year. Rob even opposed SNAP reforms that targeted waste, fraud, and abuse in the program.

Bottom line

Rob talks about affordability, but nearly every time major tax cuts have been proposed, he has opposed them.

Fact

Sand encouraged Iowa cities to pursue federal climate-planning money after Gov. Reynolds declined it, defended the Green New Deal during the national debate over it, promoted a 50-by-30 renewable-energy push, praised California emissions standards, and defended the Kyoto Protocol earlier in his career.

Bottom line

On energy and climate, Rob's record is identical to AOC, Bernie Sanders and the rest of the national Democrats.

Fact

Sand has repeatedly twisted Scripture to justify the position that life begins only when a baby is born. Rob has bragged about being endorsed by Planned Parenthood and believes any efforts to protect the unborn violate individual rights. That would include third trimester abortions, babies who would be viable outside the womb.

Bottom line

Rob Sand has said that until a baby draws breath outside the womb, it should be legal to abort that baby. This includes barbaric partial birth abortions done for elective reasons. He wraps this extremism in Scripture, which shocks the conscience further. Rob Sand's position is that all abortions should be legal, at any point in a pregnancy. It's way too extreme for Iowa.

Fact

Rob Sand is a billionaire who wants to raise your taxes because he doesn't understand how regular Iowans live. Rob is married to the CEO of Lauridsen Group (LGI). LGI's global annual revenue is believed to be at or above $1 billion. As its CEO and one of three heirs to the group's ownership, Christine Lauridsen Sand is, for all intents and purposes, a billionaire. Her husband Rob, by extension, is as well. Seeing as Rob gives half his pretax income in donations to Democrats, he's clearly living off his wife's money. Any claim that their finances are separate is laughable.

Bottom line

Rob Sand wants to raise your taxes while he lives in a billionaire household. His financial reality is nothing like the working Iowa families he claims to represent.

Fact

Rob Sand wants to dismantle Iowa's current Medicaid system and put the government back in charge. His plan would jeopardize more than $1 billion in funding for Iowa hospitals, hitting rural hospitals and the communities that depend on them the hardest. Rob would let bureaucrats have more say over your healthcare, all while blowing a hole in the state's budget.

Bottom line

Rob's Medicaid experiment would mean less money for rural hospitals, fewer healthcare options, and more government bureaucracy between patients and their care.

Fact

Rob is a lifelong liberal and Democrat partisan. He is one of the Iowa Democratic Party's largest donors, having given $212,800 to the state party despite ostensibly living on a government salary. He has given a further $210,306 to his own campaign, and an additional $105,162 to other Democrats running for federal and state office. He has donated to far-flung liberals, including Hillary Clinton, Katie Porter, and Seth Magaziner. In college, Rob called himself “extremely liberal.” On the stump today, he claims his values haven't changed since then. Rob backed Howard Dean. He worked for the most liberal candidate for Governor in Iowa history, Ed Fallon. Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris endorsed Rob in 2018 and 2022. Rob chaired Biden-Harris in Iowa in 2024.

Bottom line

After twenty years of building an “Extremely Liberal” record of hardline partisanship, Rob Sand wants voters to believe he's an independent minded moderate, just in time to run for Governor. He's spent his entire career in and around politics — the only exception being a brief stint modeling in Europe.

Fact

Rob Sand criticized Iowa's permitless-carry law, said “I like my gun control.” He wants to make it easier for municipalities to violate the constitutional rights of Iowans by allowing bureaucrats to decide which law-abiding Iowans can have a permit under “may issue” laws.

Bottom line

Owning a rifle doesn't make someone a defender of the Second Amendment. Rob is just another liberal who wants the Government to restrict your exercise of your constitutional right to keep and bear arms.

Fact

Rob Sand's campaigns have received $13 million in financial support from Lauridsen Group International, a global chemical conglomerate that specializes in industrial agricultural byproducts. Among other things, LGI produces nitrate fertilizers of the kind causing Iowa's cancer crisis. Sand presents himself as the candidate who will take on powerful agricultural interests but his campaigns have all been funded by one of Iowa's largest chemical companies.

Bottom line

Rob Sand wants to lecture Iowa farmers and businesses about accountability, but he's owned by one of the companies making Iowans sick. He is a first class hypocrite.

Fact

Rob Sand has opposed deportations, for any illegal immigrant not convicted of an additional crime in Iowa. He has criticized efforts to secure the border, he has described immigration enforcement as un-Christian. His position is no different than Kamala Harris'. Indeed, under the Biden administration he denied that a border crisis even existed. He has suggested that an illegal immigrant can be an Iowan, opening the door to giving illegal immigrants welfare, in-state tuition and possibly even voting rights.

Bottom line

Rob talks about border security, but he is an open-borders liberal, who believes illegal immigrants should have all the same rights and benefits as Iowa citizens.

Fact

Until recently, Rob Sand was a gender extremist in line with the radical fringe of his party. He only recently changed his tune on boys playing in girls sports. Just last year, Rob condemned legislation that banned biological males from participating in girls' sports. Rob described the bill as discrimination. He went so far as to compare it to a hate crime and a murder. He described it as un-Christian. He flip-flopped on that position this year, just in time to run for Governor. Even still, Rob has not committed to keeping men out of women's locker rooms and bathrooms. This summer, he pledged to fight to keep extreme sexual content in school libraries, including a book that teaches children to normalize transgenderism and polygamy.

Bottom line

Rob pretends to be moderate on sex and gender issues, but he's consistently and passionately opposed any legislation that would protect kids from radical indoctrination at a young age. He has used inflammatory and irresponsible rhetoric, comparing commonsense efforts to protect kids to violence and hate crimes.

Fact

Rob Sand has said repeatedly he knows that, if elected, he'll have to contend with Republican majorities in the legislature. As such, we will never face any Democrat culture war bills. His claim to be above or against the culture war is self-refuting. Rob Sand will stand in the way of the conservative values and cultural priorities held by the majority of Iowans.

Bottom line

Rob Sand's “no culture war bills” promise only runs in one direction and it's emblematic of Rob's bad faith. If you follow the logic of his own words, he's promising to use the power of the Governorship to stop conservative cultural priorities in defense of cultural liberalism. As his track record on guns, immigration, and gender shows, Rob is a radical liberal, well out of step with ordinary Iowans, and lying through his teeth.

Fact

Zach Lahn is a sixth-generation Iowan. He grew up here, played quarterback for Sioux City East, chose to come home and buy his family farm, and lives full-time on his farm in Belle Plaine today. So why is Rob talking about Kansas? Because Zach is a dad with a blended family and his kids split time pursuant to a custody agreement. Zach flies to Kansas to pick up his children.

Bottom line

Rob Sand has spent this entire campaign attacking a father for trying to take care of his kids. Because if this is a campaign about the issues, Rob Sand will lose. He's a radical liberal out of step with what most Iowans believe.