Iowa’s Miller-Meeks extends lead, declares victory in unsettled U.S. House race

IOWA CITY — Eastern Iowa Republican incumbent Mariannette Miller-Meeks extended her narrow lead by roughly 400 votes in an unsettled U.S. House race that was still too close to call Wednesday afternoon.

The 69-year-old former ophthalmologist, state lawmaker and state public health director led Iowa City Democrat Christina Bohannan by 799 votes out more than 413,000 cast in a rematch for southeast Iowa’s 1st Congressional District, according to unofficial results.

The two-term incumbent declared victory, but said she expects a recount — which would be the second time in three elections that her narrow victory went through a recount.

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Miller-Meeks was elected to Congress in 2020 on her fourth try and by a scant six votes. Her victory held up after a protracted recount, during which Democratic candidate Rita Hart briefly contested the outcome in the U.S. House.

Miller-Meeks then defeated Bohannan by 7 percentage points in 2022.

Speaking to reporters late Wednesday afternoon in front of the Johnson County Courthouse accompanied by supporters, Miller-Meeks stressed confidence in the election process and Iowa’s voter integrity laws, noting high turnout.

“So we're very comfortable in our margin, very comfortable in our victory,” she said. “ … We anticipate that there are very few votes that are out there in provisional ballots, and certainly not enough that will overcome a triple-digit number that we've been able to put out.”

Miller-Meeks said voters have given Iowa’s congressional Republicans a mandate to reduce high gas and food prices, secure the Southern border, alleviate crime and address foreign wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.

Bohannan, in a post on the social media site X (formerly Twitter), said Wednesday afternoon that the race was too close to call and that her campaign was expecting more ballots to come in over the coming days.

“We will ensure each and every lawful vote is counted,” the post states. “Thank you to all who have gotten us to this point, I am honored to be in this with you.”

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The Associated Press had not yet called the race as of Wednesday afternoon.

“The AP didn’t call my race in 2020, and here I stand now,” a defiant Miller-Meeks told reporters at her campaign’s results watch party early Wednesday at Riverside Casino.

Asked about the prospect of another recount, Miller-Meeks said it’s unlikely — based on historical trends — to change the outcome of the race.

The 2020 roller-coaster race seesawed and narrowed from an 282-vote lead for Miller-Meeks before a district-wide recount began, to 47 votes after late-arriving mail-in absentee and provisional ballots were counted, and precinct reporting errors were corrected in Jasper and Lucas counties, eventually narrowing to a final six-vote margin.

There also was a never resolved 131-ballot discrepancy between a recount board’s tabulation of the absentee ballots received by the Scott County auditor and those included in the county's certified canvass of election results after Election Day.

With no late-arriving absentee ballots this go-around due to a change in Iowa law — and absent known precinct reporting errors — the chances of finding enough outstanding votes to overcome a 799-vote gap is slim to none, said Derek Muller, a nationally recognized election law scholar at the University of Notre Dame and a former University of Iowa law professor.

“The prospects of a recount changing the outcome is basically zero” with a 799-vote margin, Muller said. “You would need a tabulation error to change the outcome. There were hundreds of ballots incorrectly tabulated in Jasper and Lucas counties in 2020. … Unless the final margin is less than 100, I don’t know that a recount is going to change anything.”

Control of the U.S. House at stake

Election results from Washington County were not entirely completed by the end of Election Day, leaving much of the state in suspense about the outcome of the hotly contested race in a swing district that could prove pivotal in deciding control of Congress — and whether Iowa Republicans would continue to hold on to all of the state’s four U.S. House seats.

As of Wednesday afternoon, Republicans had won control of the U.S. Senate. Control over the House of Representatives, however, was still up for grabs, with hard-fought House races still being decided across the country. According to the Associated Press, it could take days to determine winners.

Iowa Republican incumbents Randy Feenstra and Ashley Hinson easily held onto their seats and defeated Democratic challengers in the largely rural 4th district in Western Iowa and the 2nd district in northeast Iowa, respectively. And first-term Republican incumbent Zach Nunn defeated Democrat Lanon Baccam in closely contested race for central Iowa’s 3rd congressional district, which includes much of the Des Moines metro area.

What happened in Washington County

Washington County had only one of its precincts fully reported by 11:59 p.m. Tuesday, according to an election tracker tool on the Iowa Secretary of State’s website. By 9 a.m. Wednesday, it was one of just two counties in the state with incomplete election results online. The other was Story County.

Washington County Auditor Dan Widmer said his office had encountered “scanner issues” with absentee ballots, and said in a call shortly after midnight Nov. 6 that officials would resume the count at 8 a.m. after getting the all-clear to go home for the night from state election higher-ups.

Widmer said the problem was sorted out after several phone calls with a vendor, but it put local elections staff behind schedule. He said they needed more time to finish reporting the outcome, and finished processing all the votes by noon Wednesday.

Miller-Meeks was ahead of Democratic Challenger Christina Bohannan by just 413 votes as of 12:30 a.m. Wednesday.

The campaign trail

Bohannan, a University of Iowa law professor and former state lawmaker, has emphasized her support of abortion rights at a time when Iowa Republicans have changed the law to outlaw abortions in most circumstances. She also called for reducing costs for a range of goods and services, including groceries, gas and housing.

Miller-Meeks said she believes there can be “consensus” around passing a federal law that would ban abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy. She described herself as “pro-life” with exceptions for legal abortions in the cases of rape, incest or danger to the mother’s life. She also has said she wants to help reduce inflation and improve the economy, and she supports lowering the price of prescription drugs and over-the-counter oral contraceptives.

At her campaign’s event in Iowa City on Tuesday night, Bohannan thanked her campaign team, family, volunteers and supporters for their efforts, highlighting the importance of issues like democracy, education funding, reproductive rights and the cost of living.

Bohannan highlighted the significance of young voters’ involvement in her campaign, encouraging them to remember their impact and to continue engaging in politics.

“As I said, we knew that this was going to be one of the most challenging races in the country, and there were pundits and people in Washington, D.C., who thought that we did not have a chance to win this race, and now here we are, this close, getting down to the wire, and just too close to call,” Bohannan said.

She expressed pride in her grassroots campaign.

“We did it, friend to friend, neighbor to neighbor, door talking to people in our communities,” Bohannan said. “We have got to get back to that. We’ve got to get away from the divisiveness and everything. We’ve got to get back to talking to one another, and that is what we have done on this campaign, and I am so incredibly proud of what we have done and how we have done it.”

Money poured into the 1st District campaign. As of Oct. 16, Bohannan had raised more than $5.8 million and Miller-Meeks more than $4.8 million, according to federal campaign finance records. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee poured more than $1.3 million into the election in hopes of flipping the seat.

Outside groups spent heavily on the campaign also. Groups spent nearly $14.3 million on the campaign — $6.9 million to back Miller-Meeks and $7.3 million to back Bohannan — according to Open Secrets, a nonprofit that tracks money in politics.

Miller-Meeks attacked Bohannan and Democrats for being “tone deaf” to voters’ concerns.

“And I think for us, we were in tune with what people were most concerned about, and we are offering not platitudes but policy provisions that would make their lives better,” she said. “We have a mandate, and we have to get to work for the American people. It's not enough to win an election. We have a job to do. We need to govern. We need to put in policies that make lives and the American people better.”

Erin Murphy of The Gazette and Kalen McCain of the Southeast Iowa Union contributed.

Comments: (319) 398-8499; tom.barton@thegazette.com