Miller-Meeks’ narrow win, rest of Iowa’s 2024 election results officially certified

DES MOINES — Iowa’s 2024 general election results are official — including the recount in an Eastern Iowa congressional district — after a state panel’s certification Monday.

The Iowa Board of Canvass, which is comprised of top state officials, met Monday via telephone to officially certify the state’s election results.

The certification nearly completes the Nov. 5 elections in Iowa. The state’s presidential electors will meet later this month to commit Iowa’s six Electoral College votes to Republican President-elect Donald Trump, who won the state.

The state Canvass Board is made up of the governor, Secretary of State, Auditor, Treasurer and Secretary of Agriculture. The certification puts the final, official seal of approval on Iowa’s election results, including recounts.

One such recount was in Southeast Iowa’s 1st Congressional District, where Republican incumbent Mariannette Miller-Meeks won re-election over Democratic challenger Christina Bohannan. Miller-Meeks appeared to win re-election when unofficial results reported shortly after the election showed her ahead by 802 votes.

She declared victory, but Bohannan asked for a recount.

After a full recount in the 20-county district, the official results certified by the Canvass Board confirmed Miller-Meeks’ victory, by 799 votes out of more than 427,000 cast.

Iowans cast 1,674,011 votes in the presidential election, according to the certified results. That just trails the just more than 1.7 million cast in the 2020 presidential election, which is the state’s all-time high.

Voter turnout for the 2024 general election was 74.1 percent, Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate said Monday. He called that turnout “impressive and significant.” It also slightly trailed 2020 turnout, which was 75.8 percent.

During the brief Canvass Board meeting, Pate praised Iowa’s voters and local elections officials. He said their work helped ensure Iowa’s elections were “safe, fair and accurate.”

“The commitment of our officials, the diligence of our election workers and the engagement of our citizens are what makes this process possible,” Pate said during the meeting.

“From our 99 county auditors to the 10,000-plus poll workers — your friends and neighbors — we have the best of the best serving their communities, working long hours on Election Day and doing their part to ensure fair elections across the state,” Pate said. “Our local election officials are some of the hardest working Iowans.”

Gov. Kim Reynolds praised Pate and elections officials for continuing to “uphold the integrity of the election process in the state of Iowa.”

The certified results displayed a shift in partisan voter behavior: more Republicans than Democrats voted early in Iowa in the 2024 general election. Republicans cast 268,899 early votes in Iowa this fall; Democrats cast 257,634 early votes, according to the certified results.

Historically, more Democrats have voted early while more Republicans have voted on Election Day. That script flipped in Iowa this year.

Pate said that could be explained by many variables, but noted in particular Republicans’ focus on early voting this year in contrast to the 2020 presidential election, when Trump frequently criticized early voting — without evidence — as being rife with fraud.

“There was resistance four years ago to vote absentee by the Republican Party, to some extent, but I think they got much more comfortable with that, and that shifted (the early voting results),” Pate told reporters.

Pate also noted that the shift in voter behavior only really changed the timing of the votes, not the overall totals. While the early voting trends flipped, Pate noted, overall turnout was down less than 2 percentage points.

“If you look at the trends from 2016 to today, voter turnout still is about the same. It’s just the method in which they choose to do it,” Pate said. “I’ve always said this: Voter turnout is not something my office gets to really control. It’s really based on the candidate and the messaging.”

Iowa’s presidential electors will meet Dec. 17 to commit the state’s six Electoral College votes to Trump. The president-elect defeated Democrat Kamala Harris by 13.1 percentage points in the state.

The presidential electors are selected by the state’s political parties during their respective conventions. They are bound by state law to cast the state’s Electoral College votes for the candidate who received the most votes in the state.

Comments: (515) 355-1300, erin.murphy@thegazette.com

Get the latest Iowa politics and government coverage each morning in the On Iowa Politics newsletter.