Iowa Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks beats Dem challenger in state's 1st Congressional District
Republican Iowa Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks has successfully fended off Democratic challenger Christina Bohannan in the race for the state's 1st Congressional District, The Associated Press reported Wednesday.
Miller-Meeks has served in the U.S. House since 2021, and currently represents the state’s 1st Congressional District, which includes cities such as Davenport and Iowa City in the southeastern portion of the state.
She flipped her seat from blue to red in 2020 and saw this year’s race move from a "likely" victory for Republicans to a toss-up. She won her 2020 race by a slim margin of just six votes but expanded that advantage in 2022.
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Miller-Meeks fended off a GOP primary challenger earlier in the cycle who accused her of voting "against you and the Republican platform over 40% of the time," while she pitched herself to voters as a "proven conservative."
The Iowa Republican received endorsements from the Trump orbit amid her election cycle, including former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell and former Trump Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
"There is no better conservative fighter for Iowa's First Congressional District than Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks. I am proud to endorse and serve beside Mariannette to deliver for the American people and help claw back disastrous policies from the Biden administration," House Speaker Mike Johnson said in his endorsement of Miller-Meeks earlier in the election cycle.
Miller-Meeks is a doctor and military veteran who served in the U.S. Army for 24 years before retiring as a lieutenant colonel.
Democratic challenger Bohannon is a law professor at the University of Iowa College of Law, who previously served in the Iowa state House of Representatives from 2021 to 2023. She campaigned on making the Iowa public school system top-rate nationally, instituting "common-sense gun laws," fighting to "put Roe v. Wade back into federal law" and vowing to "work with anyone to secure the border."
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The pair sparred during a debate last month that included exchanges on abortion and the economy, as well as immigration reform. Miller-Meeks, similar to Republicans across the nation, pinned blame for the illegal immigration crisis on the Biden-Harris administration following former President Donald Trump's White House border policies.
"Trump-era policies that reduced the amount of illegal immigrants coming across our border, that helped to keep down the amount of illegal drugs, illegal fentanyl, that our customs and border protections agents actually felt like they were doing their job," Miller-Meeks said during the debate.
Bohannan argued that a bipartisan piece of legislation this year that would have addressed the border but argued Republicans "killed it." Republicans have said the immigration bill would have further worsened the crisis, and that the legislation was essentially dead on arrival.
"We had a golden opportunity recently to pass the strictest border security bill that we have seen in this country in a very long time, maybe ever. And Rep. Miller-Meeks and her party in the House killed it," Bohannan said last month.
Miller-Meeks previously defeated Bohannan in the 2022 general election, 53% to 47%. The 1st district as a whole went for Trump in the 2020 election, voting for him by about three percentage points over President Biden.
Fox News Digital's Adam Shaw contributed to this report.