Zach Wahls in the Crosshairs of the Washington Examiner

What's the truth?

Apr 02, 2026

I read the conservative Washington Examiner like I read the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal—with skepticism.

In my opinion, they aren’t MAGA media like Fox, Newsmax, or OAN, where the lies, misinformation, misdirection, and omissions are calculated and purposeful; the conservative Washington Examiner and Wall Street Journal are different, and perhaps more insidious, in that they have spent over a decade normalizing Trump and his actions that have resulted in the mess we are in today. And they continue to do so, to their everlasting shame.

The Examiner column, as the headline says, examines 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’ve written about my support for Turek here and here.

Given my experience reading the Washington Examiner, at first I thought it was a hit piece and that I might be able to ignore it, but then I saw the reporting was by what I feel is an excellent reporter, Samantha-Jo Roth. I read her regularly and first became aware of her political reporting for WOI-TV in Des Moines, maybe a dozen or so years ago. She’s really good.

She knows Iowa, the individuals involved, and the importance of this Senate contest. She has credibility.

I encourage you to read her entire column, but below I quote some relevant points for context.

EXCLUSIVE — Iowa state Sen. Zach Wahls has built his U.S. Senate campaign around a message of standing up for working-class voters, but his time in public offices shows a taste for luxurious hotels, flights to coastal enclaves, and high-end eateries…

Internal Iowa Democratic Party records from Wahls’s time as the Democratic leader in the state Senate show thousands of dollars in reimbursements for travel, lodging, and meals, including a string of high-cost flights and hotel stays that far exceed what other party leaders have reported…

The sum is dramatically higher than that claimed by his predecessors. Former Senate Democratic leader Mike Gronstal reported roughly $4,400 in reimbursements over two decades, while more recent leaders, including Rob Hogg, Janet Peterson, and Pam Jochum, each reported roughly $1,100 to $1,500 over their respective tenures, according to public records. The Iowa Democratic Party declined to comment…

Among the largest individual expenses is a $2,472 Delta flight, listed simply as ‘transportation,’ with no further explanation. But that charge was not an outlier.

Over a short stretch in August 2022, Wahls was reimbursed for a multi-city itinerary that included flights costing $1,708 from New York to San Francisco, $1,268 from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., $1,208 from Los Angeles to New York, $858 from Washington to Cedar Rapids, and $608 for a flight from Cedar Rapids to San Francisco. The cross-country routing, spanning Iowa, California, New York, and Washington, included multiple legs priced well above typical domestic airfare, suggesting premium or last-minute bookings…

The spending extended beyond flights. Records show repeated stays at the Hotel Fort Des Moines, with multiple reimbursements for lodging and food, including several stays costing more than $600 and $700 each. Taken together, those stays totaled nearly $3,000 at the recently renovated property, which markets itself as a high-end destination frequented by celebrities and politicians…

One Iowa Democrat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly, said concerns about Wahls’s expenses were widely known among lawmakers, even if they were not publicly aired at the time…

That’s just part of the story, and these revelations are tied to Iowa Senate Democrats’ vote to remove Wahls as minority leader in 2023.

Wahls’s campaign manager Anna Brichacek defended the expenses.

“As Iowa Senate Democratic leader, Zach Wahls worked his a** off to raise the money needed to elect more Democrats… that included more fundraising travel and expenses than previous leaders, and as a result, Zach contributed $770,000 in 2022 to the Iowa Democratic Party to help elect more Democrats.”

Call me naive, but my natural inclination is to side with Wahls. It takes money to raise money, and to be effective at it, you have to meet people with money where they are and when they are available. And since he did, he raised substantial amounts. While I have never been in such a position, it seems that if possible, one needs to stay where rich donors stay and eat what they eat and where they eat. Expensive travel can be justified. These are different times than when other previous leaders served, and maybe the expenses were necessary.

Brichacek didn’t quite put it this way, but it seems to me the costs were likely worth it given the return on investment. Roth noted that Wahls’s tenure in the position coincided with the 2022 elections, where Democrats lost two Iowa Senate seats. This loss is irrelevant to the issue at hand, however. The investments still had to be made to try to win Senate seats.

One more quote from Roth’s column:

The Iowa Democrat who spoke on the condition of anonymity said questions about Wahls’s past leadership decisions and financial management could become a liability in a general election, even as the primary remains difficult to predict, adding that Hinson is “very hard to beat,” regardless of the nominee.

In normal times, it makes sense that these issues could become a liability in the general election should Wahls win the primary.

But these aren’t normal times, and the Hinson campaign will throw so much dirt at Wahls if he is the nominee that it probably won’t matter. She will lie, cheat, and steal, doing anything she can to win.

Here, I can’t resist a very lame joke. Please forgive me.

Question: How can you tell when a MAGA politician is lying?

Answer: When their lips are moving.

I don’t think Roth’s reporting will matter in the general, should Wahls win the nomination. It might, however, matter in the primary against Turek.

So, where are we now?

Is Zach Wahls’s financial management a problem? Was he a wasteful spendthrift, or were his expenses wise investments?

We don’t know.

We can form any opinion we want, but we really don’t have enough information to know the truth. I don’t anyway, and neither, likely do you.

I suspect party leadership does, and many Iowa Democratic legislators do, but they aren’t speaking publicly, which is wise in a contested primary. Let the voters decide without them putting their thumbs on the scale.

So how do we find the truth?

The answer lies with Zach Wahls.

His campaign is probably advising him to ignore Roth’s column and move on, believing that we will forget. That’s probably good advice, but that’s not going to stop me from probably over-analyzing. That’s what I do.

While I don’t believe it will matter in the general, it could in the primary.

If Wahls believes everything he did was on the up and up, why not be transparent about it? Questions about it will likely come up on the campaign trail by Iowans or the press.

Deal with it now. Diffuse the controversy, don’t ignore it until it comes up in an uncomfortable setting.

I suggest he spend some time pulling up a spreadsheet of these expenses and annotate them. Justify each entry of, say, over 100 bucks. Tell us what the expenditure was for, and why it was a good idea.

And, if there were any errors, fess up. Reimburse the party. We know it’s tough keeping track of these kinds of things, and mistakes happen.

Own it. And move on.

Hinson will say what she will. Her statements about it will be buried in a torrent of lies.

If Wahls annotates his expenses and shows us why they were valuable, the public will appreciate it. And, if the Turek campaign decides to make an issue of it, when there really isn’t one, it will tell us more about the Turek campaign than Wahls.

Annotate those expenditures, give them to the press, and let Iowans decide. Don’t leave us in limbo, ignorant but curious, about where Roth’s valuable journalism has left us.

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