IOWA, USA — Zach Nunn, the Republican incumbent in Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District, is looking to hold onto the seat against Democrat Lanon Baccam.
It’s a seat Nunn, a former member of the Iowa Legislature, won from Democratic incumbent Cindy Axne in 2022. That race was separated by just a couple thousand votes.
"We recognize that we are in one of the most hotly contested seats nationwide," Nunn told Radio Iowa in August 2023.
A Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll from September showed GOP candidates ahead in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Districts.
In the 3rd District, 52% of those polled supported a Republican candidate, with Democrats at 44% and 4% not sure.
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Nunn is a sixth-generation Iowan who was raised on the east side of Des Moines. As an airborne intelligence officer, he served in the U.S. Air Force for around two decades.
After serving overseas, he served as Director of Cybersecurity on the White House’s National Security Council. He currently serves as a Colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserve.
An integral part of Nunn’s campaign has been border security.
"We have a humanitarian crisis at our Southern Border with apprehensions and crime happening at levels we’ve never seen before," Nunn said on his website. "The border needs to be secured, and we need to prioritize this now before crime gets worse. We can secure our border while also prioritizing legal immigration reform."
During his current term, Nunn has served on the following Congressional committees:
- House Financial Services Committee
- Subcommittee on Capital Markets
- Subcommittee on National Security, Illicit Finance, and International Financial Institutions
- House Agriculture Committee
- Subcommittee on General Farm Commodities, Risk Management, and Credit
- Subcommittee on Commodity Markets, Digital Assets, and Rural Development
- Congressional-Executive Commission on China
On Nov. 9, 2023, Baccam announced he’d be running against Nunn for the House seat.
Baccam, who is a military veteran, most recently worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture under former Iowa governor and current Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack.
He was born and raised in Mount Pleasant after his parents emigrated from Laos in 1980.
The first-generation American joined the Iowa National guard at 17-years-old and would be deployed to Afghanistan in 2004 where he said he served as a combat engineer detonating unexploded ordinance and weapons caches.
A key part of Baccam’s platform has been reproductive rights with his campaign website stating, “Women should be able to make their own reproductive healthcare decisions without government interference. In Congress, I will do everything in my power to stop a national abortion ban, and work to codify the protections of Roe v Wade into law.”
The winner will be sworn in with the rest of the 119th Congress on Jan. 3, 2025, and the Speaker of the House be elected the same day.
The two-year term ends in early 2027.
Counties included in Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District are Greene, Guthrie, Dallas, Polk, Cass, Adair, Madison, Montgomery, Adams, Union, Clarke, Lucas, Monroe, Wapello, Page, Taylor, Ringgold, Decatur, Wayne, Appanoose and Davis.