Iowa's Millennial-vs-Millennial Governor's Race Previews the Post-Boomer, Post-Trump Political Era
Source: Ben Jacobs. "The Iowa governor’s race between Rob Sand and Zach Lahn is the future of American politics.." October 26, 2026. slate.com
The Gist
The author argues that Iowa's governor race between two millennials shows what American politics will look like for decades. Both candidates are running in a world shaped by economic disruption and social media, and Sand in particular is winning attention by attacking both parties. Whoever wins, the old boomer-era political divides are fading.
Conclusion
Regardless of who wins, the Iowa governor's race between Rob Sand and Zach Lahn is a preview of the politics of the 2030s and 2040s, when millennials dominate and the old divides inherited from the baby boomer era become obsolete.
Premises
- Both candidates are millennials who entered the job market during the Great Recession and are campaigning in a world shaped by deindustrialization, AI-driven dislocation, and social-media-based information consumption, not the prosperous, optimistic, Cold War-era America that shaped earlier political divides.
- Sand runs on an explicitly nonideological anti-politics message that disdains the two-party system and political institutions, appealing both to Republicans jaded by Trump and to Democrats angry at their own establishment.
- Sand's message resonates even in strongly progressive settings (such as Grinnell College) and fits a broader, cross-ideological Democratic hostility toward party leadership, seen in the popularity of figures like Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders.
- Traditional Democratic institutions such as unions and Black churches are shrinking and being replaced by social media, leaving the party an 'empty vessel' that many of its own voters loathe.
- Lahn is attempting a synthesis of Trumpist populism and pre-Trump conservative ideology, so both parties' candidates are departing from late-20th-century political norms.
- The race is highly competitive in a state that has shifted hard toward the GOP, showing that this new style of politics can succeed even in difficult terrain.
Assumptions
- The behavior and appeal of two candidates in one state are representative of national political trends.
- Generational cohort (millennial) experiences will determine political style and priorities as millennials gain power.
- Anti-establishment, nonideological appeals will persist and not be a transient reaction to the Trump era or the midterm environment.
- Sand's message is genuinely anti-partisan rather than a tactical adaptation to running as a Democrat in a red state.
- Economic and technological conditions (deindustrialization, AI, social media) will continue to erode the frameworks of the older political order.