Third District Rep. Zach Nunn has a Democratic challenger in his bid for reelection in 2024.
Lanon Baccam of Des Moines announced Thursday he will run to unseat the first-term Republican. Baccam will campaign behind a record as a military veteran and as a public servant with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Baccam's most recent position at the USDA was deputy chief of staff to the Secretary of Agriculture. He resigned from that position to run for Congress. In other stops within the agency, he oversaw programs expanding broadband and worked to support veterans changing careers.
“Iowans want people who have real world experiences that have a record of delivering on things like I have over time — in my experiences working with veterans at the USDA, in my experience delivering on programs for farmers and ranchers,” Baccam said.
Like Nunn, who served in the Air Force, Baccam, 42, is also a military veteran.
He enlisted in the Iowa Army National Guard when he was 17 years old and was deployed to Afghanistan as a combat engineer in 2004. In Kandahar Province, he worked on teams that collected and destroyed unexploded munitions so that they could not be used by opposing forces — including the Taliban — to make IEDs, or improvised explosive devices.
Baccam said the work was focused on finding solutions to problems, but Congress, by contrast, is too often distracted by partisanship.
“Politics wasn’t the first thing we paid attention to. It was a shared brotherhood and experience and a camaraderie that can be rebuilt,” Baccam said. “If a bunch of guys from across the political spectrum can build a brotherhood to defend this county, we can do that again in Congress and I plan to do that when I go up there.”
Baccam lives in Des Moines with his wife and daughter, but was born in Mouth Pleasant where his parents resettled in 1980. They were Tai Dam refugees who came to the United States under a program championed by Gov. Robert Ray.
Coming from a rural town, Baccam said one of his main motivations to run for Congress is to revitalize the rural economy.
“People want to be able to buy a home in the communities in which they live. Folks want to be able to retire with dignity,” Baccam said. “I understand what it takes to help strengthen these rural communities.”
Nunn won the 3rd District in 2022 by less than 1% over Democrat Cindy Axne. Baccam said he plans to reclaim the seat by campaigning on issues including improving economic opportunities and protecting abortion rights.
This is Baccam’s first time running for elected office, although he has been involved with campaigns before. In 2020, he was appointed as the deputy state director for President Joe Biden’s campaign in Iowa.
Baccam’s announcement Thursday was followed by endorsements from prominent Iowa democrats including former Gov. Tom Vilsack, former First Lady Christie Vilsack and State Auditor Rob Sand.
“Throughout his decades of service, Lanon has shown his commitment to serving the people of Iowa – and he is exactly the leader we need in Congress,” Sand said in a statement announcing his endorsement. “He is the best candidate to take on Zach Nunn and deliver real results for Iowans.”
In a statement responding to Baccam entering the race, the Nunn campaign said his ties to the Biden administration suggest he will be a “rubber stamp on their radical agenda he helped write.”
“While he may want to be anointed the nominee by his powerful friends in DC, I suspect Iowans will have other ideas, and he’ll first have to survive a growing primary including other Democrats — Melissa Vine and Tracy Limon,” Nunn campaign manager Kendyl Parker said, referring to two other Democrats who have yet to announce publicly as candidates.
