Wahls Campaign Responds to My Column and the Washington Examiner

And did the Iowa Democratic Party drop the ball?

Democratic Senate Primary candidate Zach Wahls, August 2, 2025, at a candidate meet and greet hosted by the West Des Moines Democrats (my photo).

Earlier today, I published Zach Wahls in the Crosshairs of the Washington Examiner: What’s the truth?

The Examiner column examined Wahls’s allegedly exorbitant spending when he was minority leader in the Iowa State Senate, contrasting it in a negative way with his populist message this campaign cycle. He’s running in the Democratic primary for a U.S. Senate seat against Josh Turek for the opportunity to face Republican Ashley Hinson in the general election.

I gave Wahls the benefit of the doubt in my story that the expenses he reported were appropriate, but that questions remained, and that he would be better off by putting the issue to rest by providing annotated receipts justifying the expenses.

Maybe an hour ago, I received the email below from Andy Suchorski, Senior Advisor, Wahls for Iowa. It’s shared with Andy’s permission.

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Hi Bob -

I saw your write up on the Washington Examiner piece and I think it’s missing a lot of context.

First, to address your concerns around transparency, the Iowa Democratic Party released the following statement, emphasizing that all of these expenses were legitimate expenses related to campaign activities: Senator Wahls Followed Appropriate Reimbursement Process - Iowa Democratic Party

“As Leader, Senator Wahls followed all the appropriate processes to be reimbursed for legitimate campaign expenses. All expenses included appropriate receipts and documentation that expenses were related to Senate Majority Fund business.”

He also specifically addressed the Examiner piece in a video yesterday: Post by @zachwahls.bsky.social — Bluesky

I was the Senate Majority Fund Director who signed off on the expenses in question, and I can verify that all of the expenses in question were related to fundraising activities, which were successful, and helped Zach Wahls raise $770,000 for the Iowa Democratic Party while he was leader.

We have been extremely transparent about these expenses. As the Iowa Democratic Party verified (and approved the expenses), there were receipts for everything and the internal process was followed. In fact the only reason these kind of expenses were able to be reported on in the first place is because Zach was so transparent and thorough in documenting his expenses.

I hope you will update your story to reflect this information.

Thank you

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Andy Suchorski
Senior Advisor, Wahls for Iowa

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I very much appreciate this timely response, and to me, this puts the matter to rest for the Wahls campaign, which was the hope that I shared in the column.

I will note that, according to the Examiner column, “the Iowa Democratic Party declined to comment.”

I didn’t think about it before, but since Suchorski shared a comment from the party, I wonder why they didn’t make this comment before when asked by Examiner reporter Samantha-Jo Roth? Why not defend Wahls?

Suchorski shared the statement from a release that the Democratic Party provided, stating that all expenses were legitimate. So they did have a comment? I didn’t receive a press release I can find, but I do see a statement on the party website when I follow the link Suchorski provided.

To my surprise, I see it is dated YESTERDAY, April 1, 2026, clearly in response to Roth’s Examiner column of that same day, years after the expenditures were made.

As much as I don’t want to say it, someone at the Iowa Democratic Party dropped the ball.

If I had seen the statement from the party in the Examiner column that all expenditures were appropriate, I wouldn’t have written anything. If the Democratic Party had responded to the author of the column when asked, maybe she wouldn’t have found the need to write it either.

Regardless, to my mind, with respect to the Wahls campaign, the air is now clear, and any major questions raised in the Washington Examiner column have been addressed.

Yet, the lack of response or comment by the Iowa Democratic Party to the Examiner may well have hurt Wahls’ campaign.

Thanks again, Andy, for your informative and timely response.

And to the Iowa Democratic Party, I’ll be happy to publish your response, just as I did Andy’s.

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