Zach Lahn is running for governor of Iowa as the farmers' candidate. On June 12, 2026, he named his running mate: Derek Wulf, who runs Shallow Creek Land & Livestock and presents himself as a working farmer dealing with refinancing trouble.

A Des Moines Register investigation has since laid out what that refinancing trouble consists of.

Since 2023, eight people or businesses have sued Wulf or his company. Most of those suits have since been settled or dropped. Two lawsuits filed this year accuse Wulf or Shallow Creek of fraud and theft. A judge has ordered his farm into receivership. And the Black Hawk County Sheriff's Office confirmed to the Register that it has an open investigation into him, which remains active. No criminal charges have been announced.

Almost everyone suing him is in agriculture.

What the lenders and the co-op say

WCF Financial Bank. The bank extended Wulf 19 lines of credit. By early May, principal and interest came to about $3.1 million, growing by roughly $1,100 a day. The bank had already closed his checking account the previous November, when he was $584,000 in arrears. In a May filing, the bank accused Wulf of selling off livestock that served as collateral for his loans without telling it first.

Heartland Co-Op. The co-op says Wulf owed it money for pig feed. He wrote it a check in February and another in March, both drawn on the WCF account that had been closed the previous November. After the second one bounced on March 30, Heartland's attorney put it in writing:

"Your efforts to make payments twice via [Automated Clearing House] from a bank account that was closed four months earlier are acts of fraud."

The receivership order came after WCF's attorney told the court Wulf had failed to produce a refinancing commitment letter from another bank — the thing his own explanation rests on.

Wulf says it's handled. The court record says a receiver is handling it.

Wulf sat for a KCCI interview before the Register published. His answer was that the problem is behind him.

"Our refinancing has been completed, and we're working through that as a family, and it will not affect the campaign at all."

Lahn's communications director, Dan Capodilupo, called the allegations "categorically false" and described the situation as ordinary farm refinancing that should not disqualify anyone from office. Capodilupo has also said Lahn did not know about the criminal investigation when he chose Wulf.

Take that last answer at face value for a moment. Wulf had a closed bank account and a bounced check on the record, had been sued by several parties, and had been sued by his primary lender on May 13 — a month before Lahn announced him on June 12. A gubernatorial campaign that looked at any of that would have found it. Lahn's defense is that his campaign didn't look.

The problem is who the plaintiffs are

This is not a story about a candidate's personal balance sheet. The people and businesses in these filings are a bank that lends to farmers, a co-op that sells feed, and other agricultural operators.

Dave Muhlbauer — the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, which makes him Rob Sand's running mate and Wulf's opponent — made exactly that point at a news conference on September 10:

"This isn't just about a bad farm economy. Zach Lahn's running mate is accused of defrauding farmers and threatening their livelihoods."

At the same news conference he called Lahn's selection of Wulf "disqualifying", citing the sheriff's criminal investigation, and accused Lahn of failing to vet him.

To be precise about who is accused of what: these allegations are against Derek Wulf and his company. Nobody has accused Lahn of any of it. What belongs to Lahn is the decision to put Wulf a step from the governor's office, and the choice not to check first.

It is the second time Lahn's farmer identity has not held up

Lahn's campaign identity is the plain-spoken Iowa farmer taking on corporate agriculture. He calls agribusiness a "cartel."

The Wall Street Journal went looking for the farmer and found a millionaire Koch operative who had voted in Kansas as recently as 2022. We then traced his actual career: he ran the Koch network's Montana branch and fought Medicaid expansion there, and still sits on a Koch-funded board — while Koch is one of four companies holding 84% of North America's nitrogen fertilizer capacity.

His own finances have drawn the same kind of scrutiny. The Kansas school he co-founded and calls the best model in the country owes him and his wife $4.5 million, and the Lahns are simultaneously its officers, its only publicly disclosed trustees, and its largest creditor.

What the record shows

Zach Lahn announced Derek Wulf as his running mate for Iowa lieutenant governor on June 12, 2026. Since 2023, eight people or businesses have sued Wulf or his company Shallow Creek Land & Livestock, two of this year's suits allege fraud and theft, and a judge has placed his farm in receivership after his lender told the court he could not produce a refinancing commitment. WCF Financial Bank says his debt on 19 credit lines reached about $3.1 million by early May and grows by roughly $1,100 a day, and that it had closed his checking account the prior November with him $584,000 in arrears. A co-op's attorney wrote that Wulf's attempted payments from a bank account closed four months earlier were "acts of fraud." The Black Hawk County Sheriff's Office has an active investigation and has announced no charges. Lahn's campaign says he did not know about it.

Source

Muhlbauer criticizes Lahn's choice of Wulf amid lawsuits, investigation, KCCI, September 2026, and Little Village's account of the Des Moines Register investigation. Photo: KCCI.