Zach Nunn is in a tight race, and he has decided to fight it with a lie.

On June 23, at a Republican barbeque in Clarke County, Iowa, Nunn stood up and said this about his Democratic opponent, Lutheran pastor Sarah Trone Garriott: "She says she's a Lutheran pastor, but then she goes out and officiates demonic weddings." He also said she thinks Iowa is "too white, too Christian, too male."

None of the "demonic weddings" story is true. And Nunn knows it.

What actually happened

Here is the real story, which Trone Garriott told herself on a stage in 2023 at the Des Moines Storytellers Project, a live event where people share personal stories. The theme that night was "love."

Back in 2006, she was a minister-in-training at a Lutheran church in West Virginia. A couple who called themselves Satanists came to the church and asked to be married. Trone Garriott felt uneasy about it. But the head pastor told her to take part by picking out a Bible verse and reading it.

So that's what she did. She read one scripture passage at a Christian ceremony, in a Lutheran church, with readings from the New Testament. She told the story years later to make a point about treating people with goodwill even when you disagree with them.

That's it. That's the whole "demonic wedding."

She did not officiate the wedding. She couldn't have — she wasn't even ordained until 2008, two years after the ceremony. A minister-in-training reading a Bible verse is not a Satanist priest. The National Memo put it plainly: the service was Christian, held in a church, and she was not qualified to lead it.

Nunn's own party wrote the lie down first

Nunn didn't invent this smear on his own. His party did, and he picked it up.

Back in April, the National Republican Congressional Committee — the main group in Washington that works to elect House Republicans — posted on social media that Trone Garriott "officiated a SATANIST WEDDING" and that "Democrats are NUTS." The Republican Party of Iowa ran the same attack on its official blog, claiming she "gushed" about her role.

Then in June, Nunn said it out loud to a crowd of voters — turning a false party talking point into his own words. A story about a young minister being kind to strangers got twisted into a claim that a Christian pastor worships the devil.

Why he's doing it

The reason is not complicated. Nunn is behind, and he's worried.

He is one of the most vulnerable House Republicans up for reelection. The Cook Political Report rates his race a toss-up. A March poll had him leading by just one point. And Trone Garriott is out-raising him badly — she pulled in $2.2 million last quarter to Nunn's $968,000, according to National Memo.

When a candidate is losing the argument and losing the money race, this is what desperation looks like: instead of talking about the Medicaid and food-aid cuts he voted for or the town halls he refuses to hold, he calls a pastor a Satanist.

This is a pattern

Lying to voters and dodging them isn't new for Nunn.

He won't hold real in-person town halls. He has called constituent-organized meetings "taxpayer-funded protest events" — one Iowan even had to fly to Washington, D.C., just to speak with him face to face.

He also downplayed the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, describing the mob as "a bunch of middle Americans" and attacking the investigation into it.

A man who won't answer honest questions from his own constituents is now inventing dishonest attacks on his opponent. Iowa deserves a representative who tells the truth — not one who smears a pastor because he's scared of losing.

Source

This post is based on reporting from National Memo and American Journal News, with additional context from Fox News and the Republican Party of Iowa.