\n In the tight Senate race, Republican Congresswoman Ashley Hinson and Democratic State Representative Josh Turek have wrestled with the question too, both calling this month for more funding to ensure safe drinking water.\n <\/p>\n
\n This year, nearly $30 million has been spent airing more than 100 campaign ads in Iowa that mention cancer, according to AdImpact data. In the last midterms in 2022, there was just one, backed by a little under $200,000.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cNine months ago, there was no candidate talking about this except me, and now literally every candidate is featuring it in their campaign,\u201d said Chris Jones, a long-time water quality advocate and now Democratic candidate for state agriculture secretary.\n <\/p>\n
\n Yet both parties face the awkward challenge of balancing criticism of \u201cBig Ag\u201d practices with Iowa\u2019s economic reliance on the sector. On the left, Jones argues Democrats have not been bold enough to take on \u201cBig Ag,\u201d ceding ground to Republicans energized by MAHA. He has gone further than any of the other candidates on the ballot in calling for more regulation and a move away from dependence on corn and soybean production.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cYou\u2019ve got an issue here that should be a natural issue for Democrats: Clean environment,\u201d he told CNN. But the party was \u201ctoo chicken to take this issue up,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n
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\n But divisions within the Republican Party dent its credibility, argues Sara Schreiber of the League of Conservation Voters, with some MAHA voters disillusioned by Trump\u2019s unkept promises for their movement.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThey want elected officials to be responsive\u201d to their cause \u2013 health and the environment chief among them \u2013 \u201cand they\u2019re not just going to be partisan,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n
\n Iowa\u2019s Health Department attributes much of its soaring cancer rates to several lifestyle factors: Obesity, alcohol and smoking chief among them. But it acknowledged that environmental exposures could play a role, inflaming Iowans who see cancer in their community.\n <\/p>\n
\n Environmental advocates and some farmers highlight the concentration of nitrate from thousands of tons of livestock manure that leaks into the state\u2019s waters as a key culprit.\n <\/p>\n
\n A state cancer report showing Iowa\u2019s sobering rates \u2013\u2013 the fastest-rising in the country \u2014 \u201cwas really the game changer,\u201d for average Iowans, said Zach Smith, a farmer and founding member of the Lobe Rangers, an advocacy group that campaigns for stronger government action on environmental toxins.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThis wave of momentum and energy came in. But we need to actually turn it into something meaningful with real legislation,\u201d said Smith, an independent voter. \u201cThat\u2019s what we\u2019re interested in \u2014 getting the public wound up enough where they\u2019re willing to vote.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n That the state\u2019s Republican Party has emphasized environmental issues this election speaks both to the perceived scale of the problem and the shifting political coalitions.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt used to be a kind of liberal, tree-hugger type thing,\u201d said James Hepp, another Lobe Rangers founder and a Republican. \u201cIt had that stigma where if you talked to any environment, you were a tree hugger, but now I think you\u2019re just an informed citizen trying to do what\u2019s best.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Many Iowans who spoke to CNN credited the momentum to the MAHA movement, which threw its support behind Lahn, powering his surprise primary victory over the Trump-endorsed GOP Rep. Randy Feenstra.\n <\/p>\n
\n MAHA Action, a political advocacy group run by longtime Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ally and book publisher Tony Lyons,<\/a> put $1.5 million towards Lahn\u2019s campaign, and boasts that he was the PAC\u2019s first 2026 endorsement.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cMAHA was the first to believe in Zach Lahn, and the Iowa Republicans proved us right,\u201d Lyons said in a statement. \u201cNovember is where we prove we can win.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Yet there is distrust over the party\u2019s commitment. Lahn has had to wrestle with GOP action in Washington, where the Trump administration ordered more domestic production of pesticides and rolled back a host of environmental regulations.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI was one of the first people to come out and say that this was the wrong move to sign that executive order,\u201d on more US pesticide production, Lahn told CBS\u2019 \u201cFace the Nation\u201d this month. \u201cI think that if we could give the president the advice on that, that he would understand that better.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n But David Murphy, a MAHA-aligned Democrat who supported RFK Jr.\u2019s presidential run, says he\u2019s skeptical of Lahn because of the disappointing Republican record on MAHA under Trump.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI fundamentally think that the Trump administration and Republicans have screwed up a major opportunity that RFK Jr. endorsed,\u201d said Murphy, a fifth-generation Iowan who now works on Jones\u2019 agriculture secretary campaign.\n <\/p>\n \n In one of the most competitive Senate races in the country, allies of Turek \u2014who was born with Spina Bifida linked to his father\u2019s exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam \u2014 have raised the subject to attack his Republican opponent.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cAcross America, cancer rates are going down, but in Iowa they\u2019re going up. As a doctor, I cannot ignore what is happening,\u201d says Dr. Selden Spencer of Huxley, Iowa, in an ad from a Democratic super PAC with nearly $3 million spent in airtime since September.\n <\/p>\n \n It goes on to criticize Hinson for accepting campaign contributions from accused polluters.\n <\/p>\n \n Hannah Goss, a spokesperson for the Turek campaign said: \u201cUnlike Hinson, Josh Turek will work with anyone to put Iowans \u2014 not big corporations \u2014 first and finally address Iowa\u2019s water quality crisis, crack down on the companies that pollute our water, and tackle Iowa\u2019s cancer crisis head-on.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Hinson\u2019s campaign did not address the claims in the ad when asked. But this week, she joined with Democratic Rep. Hillary Scholten of Michigan to introduce legislation<\/a> aimed at improving access to early detection cancer screenings.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cSo many Iowa families have been touched by cancer, including mine. Iowa\u2019s rising cancer rates are unacceptable, and we have to do everything we can to reverse this trend,\u201d Hinson wrote on social media<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n Republicans are also grappling with internal fractures driven by the MAHA movement, when pro-business and public health interests collide.\n <\/p>\n \n One key point of contention is glyphosate \u2014 an herbicide commonly known as RoundUp. While many Iowans believe nitrate levels from manure are causing health problems, there are significant divides over the herbicide between farmers and MAHA activists, who say it is also driving cancer rates across the country.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThe reality is that we have all had a lot of exposure to glyphosate,\u201d said Smith, \u201cas a lot of farmers have.\u201d Disagreement over the chemical has created a dividing line that has alienated farmers \u2014 many of whom say it is necessary to keep millions of crops safe through each farming season \u2014 from the broader MAHA message, he said.\n <\/p>\n \n The science on glyphosate and health risks is far from definitive. The Environmental Protection Agency is undergoing a routine review of its safety this year, but the issue has been supercharged by Kennedy, who has a history fighting broad use of the pesticide.\n <\/p>\n \n Reflecting the internal divisions, the Republican candidate for Iowa agriculture secretary, Mike Naig, has criticized Lahn, his party\u2019s gubernatorial candidate, on the subject.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThis is more complex than what some want to make it, and I think you\u2019ve got some who have decided it\u2019s a political issue. And I think that can be very dangerous,\u201d he said in August.\n <\/p>\n \n Amid fissures on the right, Democrats are leaning into the issue. It\u2019s \u201cunsurprising that one of the stronger MAHA movements\u201d emerged in Iowa given the incidence of cancer there, said Lauren French of Senate Majority PAC, the Democratic super PAC behind the ads in the Turek-Hinson race.\n <\/p>\n \n But while the burgeoning movement is \u201cleaning more Republican at the moment,\u201d she sees an opening. For Democrats, talking about \u201cBig Ag\u201d chemicals \u201cfits into the larger issue of corruption,\u201d she said, nodding to another major voter concern this cycle.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThe problem for Republicans in Iowa, is that they have a long history of being on the wrong side of this. They chose to align themselves with the companies that are doing the poisoning of the water,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n \n Some Democrats, however, also face scrutiny. Lahn has accused Sand of being beholden to agricultural interests and accused him of taking money from a donor \u201ccaught polluting your drinking water\u201d<\/a> \u2014 claims vigorously contested by Sand\u2019s campaign.\n <\/p>\n \n In the closing weeks of the race, Sand has held a roundtable with cancer survivors in West Des Moines, discussing his plans to tackle the problem and pledging to \u201cappoint a Cancer Task Force.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cRob Sand is the only candidate in the race with a plan to address those concerns,\u201d said Emma O\u2019Brien, the deputy campaign manager. \u201cMeanwhile, Zach Lahn supports the One Big Beautiful Bill, which cuts funding for cancer research, and wants to ban mRNA vaccines, which have been found to be a promising treatment for cancer.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Lahn\u2019s campaign did not reply to CNN\u2019s requests for comment.\n <\/p>\n![\"People](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/01-gettyimages-2299618531.jpg\")
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