Welcome to Midterms Meltdown, a special pop-up newsletter from The Swamp—bringing you up to the minute with the secrets the politicians don’t want you to know about the race to November 3. Don’t miss out.
It is the most consequential election campaign since 2024, and the nooze will be oozing around the nation to shape D.C. for the next two years and beyond. Our David Gardner, Farrah Tomazin, Sarah Ewall-Wice, and Laura Esposito, are getting down and dirty with the inside stories from the battlefields every Monday and Friday.
Melting down in The Swamp today are: Mike Rogers, Zach Lahn, Rick Scott, Melania Trump, Brett Baier, Sherrod Brown, Chris Nicholson, Ken Paxton, Bo French, James Talarico, Jon Husted, and Xi Jinping.
Iowa Governor Candidate Caught Red-Wristed in Wrong State
MAGA’s Iowa gubernatorial candidate Zach Lahn appears to have been caught red-handed carpetbagging, by sneaking back to his “old” home state of Kansas.
The Republican kept his commute on the down low—but now he has been caught out by his own fitness app.
Lahn has been frantically pushing back on criticism that he’s only a part-time Iowa resident, ever since launching his bid to become the next governor of the state. But the scramble to cut his deep ties to Kansas is not going well.
Data on fitness app Strava showed a “Zach Lahn” biking around Kansas just last year. But after The Swamp spotted the user, the account was quickly deleted.
Lahn has said he moved from Kansas to Iowa, where he was born and raised, in 2023 and considers himself a full-time resident since the move. He started voting in Iowa in 2024.
But the Strava user “Zach Lahn” recorded four bike rides in Kansas between March and May 2025, The Swamp’s Sarah Ewall-Wice discovered, just months before he launched his Iowa gubernatorial bid in November.
All of the routes happened to start, and end at the $2 million home owned by the Lahns in Kechi, Kansas, a suburb of Wichita, which is roughly 385 miles from the Iowa governor’s mansion.
The four bike rides, ranging from just under 2.5 miles to 12 miles are the only ones recorded by Lahn in the app. The Strava account showed last year’s rides as recently as this week. There were precisely zero rides in Iowa.
But after The Swamp followed one Zach Lahn, the account was immediately erased. (Which means that he has lost out on the “kudos” one fellow user gave him, and all those “achievements” he racked up. Sorry, Zach.)
The deletion looked like a crude attempt to wipe Kansas ties when flight records for Lahn’s private plane, owned by Buckeye Creek Ventures LLC, already indicate he may have spent weeks in Kansas around the dates of his Strava activity in Kechi, where the Lahns’ sprawling six-bedroom estate includes an indoor pool, private lake and massive barn.
A “spokesperson” for Zahn (who tellingly did not want to give their name with the statement) lashed out at The Swamp for our findings, and said, “Zach has more than one Strava account. I’m sure you knew that, but you’re not bringing it up because the full record shows that he lives in Iowa.” The other account is set to private, and The Swamp has invited Zahn to share any rides he took in the state he wants to govern.
Lahn, 40, previously told the Des Moines Register that the Kansas home and flights were necessary to see children he and his wife have from previous marriages. But the accusations over him flying back to Kansas have not let up.
Perhaps recording some bike rides in Iowa rather than deleting the evidence would have been a better way for one “Zach Lahn” to convince voters in the state he wants to lead that he’s there to stay.
Lahn is not the only 2026 candidate who has faced carpetbagging allegations this cycle. Michigan Senate candidate Mike Rogers took his $2 million Florida mansion off the market this month, and Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall has come under scrutiny for his own Florida home he’s now trying to sell as he mounts his own reelection bid.
This Vanity Will Be The Death of Us
Republican strategists have a stern warning for Donald Trump if he wants more voters to turn up for his party in November: for the love of God, please shut up about your vanity projects!
“I think a lot of people think the president should have a tighter and sharper focus on what he’s doing to help voters,” veteran GOP consultant Chris Nicholson told The Swamp’s Farrah Tomazin. “Now, it doesn’t mean he’s not working on those other issues, but when you hear him talk about some of these other superfluous things it can make you wonder what his priorities are.” Whether the president can indeed stop talking about his pet projects is debatable, particularly as one of his biggest projects—the 250-foot triumphal arch in Washington—has started taking shape.
Workers were spotted at Memorial Circle this week, with fencing, soil markers and a small drilling rig, as excavation work got underway. The administration says the work is archeological survey work, not construction. Errr, sure. But with the midterms looming, the optics are hard to miss: while Republicans are trying to talk about affordability, Trump is literally digging holes for a monument to himself.
Running on Empty
Republican Texas Senate candidate Ken Paxton has developed a novel campaign strategy: don’t answer the question, simply leave. This week, when asked if he’d support a short term ban on diesel exports (something Trump is reportedly considering to lower prices) the embattled Senate candidate ignored the reporter and fled indoors. It’s becoming a habit.
On the campaign trail, Paxton has run from questions on everything from his 15 properties and voting residence, to questions about would-be Texas Railroad commissioner Bo French’s racially charged posts attacking South Asian-American students at University of Texas. Now his Democratic opponent James Talarico is offering Paxton an escape-proof alternative: a Fox News debate moderated by Brett Baier, who as it happens was dining with Donald Trump at the state dinner for Xi Jinping.
“I’ll go into the lion’s den,” Talarico quipped. Talarico then called Paxton’s cellphone to make the offer Paxton didn’t pick up… And so far, he hasn’t called back.
How to Vote For Republicans (shh… It’s in the Mail)
As Donald Trump repeatedly rages against vote-by-mail, Republican candidates are facing a dilemma: whether to encourage supporters to participate by any means possible or face a disadvantage when it comes to their opportunities to cast a ballot. Michigan Senate candidate Mike Rogers opted for the all of the above approach even as some MAGA members push to limit voting and lob fraud allegations. With the first mailed ballots in the state going out this week, Rogers encouraged voters to participate in absentee and early voting. His “How to Vote” page includes a link to how to vote by mail using an absentee ballot. Navigating Trump’s voting claims and getting people to participate has been a challenge for Republicans since the 2020 election. Still, Trump isn’t dwelling on the dilemma: he and Melania vote by mail-in ballot in Florida.
Biggest Polling Loser: Jon Husted
Ohio Republican Sen. Jon Husted is trailing Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in the latest Bowling Green/YouGov poll by three points, 45 percent to 48 percent, showing the race is in, at the very least, a dead heat. But that’s not the only number that’s cringe for Husted. Asked who the current senator from Ohio is, 25 percent said Brown, not the Republican senator who has been in office since January 2025. To be fair, Brown was ousted in 2024 and is trying to mount a comeback.
What Trump Is Saying:
“We had a great meeting, and he has great interest in granite. He likes, he likes granite. He’s an expert on stone, aside from many other things, and he loves good granite.” Trump’s take on stone-faced Xi Jinping.
What the Republicans Are Saying:
“I understand Trump has to be diplomatic, but Xi’s a despicable person who is killing us with fentanyl, building a military to try to defeat us.” Florida Senator Rick Scott, who was one of many Republicans unhappy about the Chinese president’s visit this week.
What the Democrats Are Saying:
“Today I’m challenging Ken Paxton to a debate on Fox News,” said Democratic Sen. candidate James Talarico. “His handler in July said, ‘Of course we’re going to debate,’ and then they declined three different invitations from local Texas TV stations, so let’s go to Ken Paxton’s safe space. Let’s do Bret Baier on Fox News. I’ll go into the lion’s den.”
And finally… place your bets
Which Party Will Win the U.S. Senate?
What they’re saying on Kalshi:
Democrats - 61 percent
Republicans - 39 percent
What they’re saying on Polymarket:
Democrats - 62 percent
Republicans - 39 percent
