Miller-Meeks defends skipping in-person town halls, says she’s already hearing from Iowans

Iowa Republican U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks on Friday defended her decision not to hold an in-person town hall so far this year, saying she regularly engages with constituents in public settings and through telephone town halls.

Asked whether she would follow through on her past pledges to host an in-person forum, Miller-Meeks explained that she is regularly available to constituents at public events such as rotary meetings, county fairs and the Iowa State Fair, where she is open to answering questions.

“Every time I walk around Iowa — every meeting that I go to, every rotary I attend, every county fair I go to — I am out in the public. I am out in the open, and I can answer anyone's questions they have,” Miller-Meeks said.

She recounted being approached at a Rotary meeting by a constituent who asked when her next town hall would be held.

“I said, ‘Oh, I'm more than happy to answer your question right now,” she said. “And they go, ‘Well, I don't want to bother you.’ I go, ‘People ask me questions all the time when I'm out in public, feel free to answer your question’ And she goes, ‘No.’ So why wouldn't a person, when I'm there in front of them, ask me a question, if they had a question to ask me?”

Miller-Meeks argued Democrats are trying to create an issue where none exists, accusing opponents of wanting to stage confrontations for cameras. She noted her campaign has hosted telephone town halls and has held in-person town halls every year in the past, indicating she intends to continue the practice, but did not provide a specific date or confirmation for an in-person town hall this year.

“My opponent has not had a town hall,” she said of Christina Bohannan, an Iowa City Democrat running to challenge Miller-Meeks in 2026.

Miller-Meeks added that Democrats “want … other people like-minded to scream and yell at people so they can videotape screaming and yelling at people.”

“And even when we were doing our press conference at the State Fair, people screamed and yelled and videotaped their screaming and yelling,” she said. “And then other people had, you know, reasonable questions that they wanted answers to, and we were able to do that. So more than happy to meet with individuals, as I do always when I'm in district.”

Bohannan will take questions at Democratic event Sunday

Bohannan participated last Sunday, Sept. 28, in the Eastern Iowa Rural Revival & Candidate Forum in Tipton, where she and other invited Democratic candidates running for office in the state took questions from those in attendance. The event was sponsored by 82nd Indivisible, a local chapter of a broader national grassroots movement with a mission to “resist Trump's agenda, focus on local, defensive congressional advocacy, and embrace progressive values."

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Campaign Manager Dan Driscoll said Bohannan also will attend an Iowa Democratic Party Hall of Fame event Sunday in Kalona, where she will take questions alongside other Democratic congressional candidates running for the seat — Muscatine attorney Taylor Wettach and University of Iowa Health Care employee Travis Terrell.

Bohannan’s campaign said it was unsurprising that Miller-Meeks has avoided in-person public town halls, accusing the congresswoman of putting the interests of drug and insurance companies ahead of Iowans.

Miller-Meeks countered that her focus is on lowering health care costs through reforms that encourage competition and transparency.

“We need lower costs in health care. As a doctor, I know that. I’m working hard to lower costs in health care, to lower prescription drug costs,” she said. “But we need marketplace reforms — not bailouts to insurance companies and not bailouts to people making over $250,000 a year,” she said of Democrats’ push for an extension of enhanced tax credits created in 2021 under a federal COVID-19 relief package.

She said the Affordable Care Act, former President Barack Obama's health care law, has failed to control health care costs and that the extension of the enhanced tax credits would conceal "the increasing health care premiums, even for wealthy Americans."

Miller-Meeks, who represents Iowa’s 1st Congressional District, is running for re-election in one of the state’s most competitive races.

A spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee criticized Miller-Meeks for breaking her pledge to hold in-person town halls, saying she is avoiding voters because she cannot defend her record on health care, taxes and tariffs.

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