Democrat Christina Bohannan is having a rematch against U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks for Iowa’s 1st Congressional District seat in the Nov. 5, 2024 election. (Photos by Robin Opsahl/Iowa Capital Dispatch)
Results were pending early Wednesday in the contest between U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Democrat Christina Bohannan, a race that some election forecasters said could be pivotal to the control of the U.S. House moving forward.
As of 1:10 a.m. Wednesday, unofficial AP results showed Miller-Meeks and Bohannan neck and neck, with the incumbent Republican only 413 votes ahead as 97% of votes are counted.
The race for Iowa’s 1st Congressional District, representing southeast Iowa and areas including Iowa City and Davenport, was expected to be a contentious race leading up to the Nov. 5 election.
Miller-Meeks defeated Bohannan in the 2022 election with 53.4% of the vote. However, the incumbent Republican’s first election to the U.S. House was much closer – Miller-Meeks won election to the then-2nd Congressional District against Democrat Rita Hart by a margin of six votes. Previously, the seat was held for more than a decade by U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack, a Democrat.
Miller-Meeks declared victory in the early hours Wednesday, though the AP had not yet called the race. The Republican’s campaign said in a news release that “with a margin of over 400 votes, the Miller-Meeks team is confident in a positive result when all votes are counted.”
Speaking at a watch party in Riverside, Miller-Meeks celebrated her greater margin of victory in the 2024 general election.
“I’ve said for the past two years that instead of a six pack we are going to win by a case, and we have!” she told the crowd.
In Iowa City, Bohannan said at her own Election Night event that although the election’s outcome was not yet known, she was proud of how competitive the race became in the final months of the 2024 election season, saying “we made it a real toss up race.”
“Whatever the outcome of this race is, we did something that nobody thought we can do,” Bohannan said. “And I want you all to remember that in the future, because you have the power to do amazing things, and I want to see you do it.”
Though Miller-Meeks had won in the past two election cycles, both candidates said on the campaign trail that they considered the area a “swing district.”
In recent months, both candidates have seen an increase in outside interests and investments as the race was rated one of the few “toss-ups” in the country that could decide control of the U.S. House in the upcoming cycle. Bohannan outraised Miller-Meeks in multiple Federal Election Commission reporting periods leading up to the election, with the report for the quarter ending Oct. 16 showing the Democrat raised a total of more than $5.8 million during the 2024 campaign season, while the incumbent raised nearly $4.7 million. OpenSecrets data shows that outside groups like super PACs have spent more than $14.3 million in the race.
One of the major issues that Bohannan emphasized on the election trail was Miller-Meeks’ position on abortion access – a larger topic in Iowa elections this year following the implementation of Iowa’s ban on the procedure when fetal cardiac can be detected, with some exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the parent.
Bohannan has accused Miller-Meeks of supporting a national abortion ban with no exceptions through her cosponsorship of the “Life at Conception” Act. Miller-Meeks has denied wanting to implement a federal ban without exceptions.
On other issues, Miller-Meeks claimed that Bohannan and other Democrats were trying to emulate Republicans on subjects like gun rights, U.S. border security and support of law enforcement, while supporting opposing measures in office.
Before Miller-Meeks was elected to Congress, she served in the U.S. Army for 24 years as a nurse and doctor, later being appointed by then-Gov. Terry Branstad to serve as the director of the Iowa Department of Public Health until 2014. In 2018, she was elected to the Iowa Senate, but made three unsuccessful bids to oust Loebsack as representative in 2008, 2010 and 2014.
Prior to her 2022 and 2024 runs, Bohannan served a term in the Iowa House, representing the 85th District covering part of Johnson County. She has worked as a law professor at the University of Iowa since 2000, focusing on copyright and intellectual property law, and had worked for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection as an environmental engineer earlier in her career.
Alice Cruse and Jackson Miles contributed to this report.
This story is developing and will be updated.