Bohannan, Miller-Meeks face off again in Iowa’s 1st District

Voters in the 1st District will again pick between Democrat Christina Bohannan, a law professor from Iowa City, and Republican incumbent Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks, an ophthalmologist with an apartment in Davenport and a property in Ottumwa.

Early voting started Wednesday for the Nov. 5 general election.

After squeaking to victory in 2020 by six votes in her fourth run for the office, Miller-Meeks defeated Bohannan in 2022 by a more comfortable, 7-percentage-point margin, 53.4% to 46.6%.

As she seeks a third term, Miller-Meeks has pledged to work to tackle inflation and illegal immigration she says has been worsened by President Joe Biden’s administration.

Bohannan has campaigned on her support for federal protections for abortion and said she would push for lowering health care costs and a greater federal investment in public schools, especially rural schools.

The two candidates have sparred in dueling ads and public comments over abortion, immigration, inflation, law enforcement support, and girls’ sports in a competitive race that could help decide control of the House of Representatives.

Forecasters are predicting a tight race between Bohannan and Miller-Meeks this year as Democrats look to regain control of the U.S. House, which has a four-seat Republican majority.

Nonpartisan analysts The Cook Political Report and Inside Elections, have most recently forecast the race as a “toss-up.” The Sabato Crystal Ball rates the district “lean Republican.” The September Des Moines Register Poll found 49% of likely 1st District voters favored a Democrat and 46% favored a Republican.

National Democrats have named it a target district to flip. The campaign arm of the U.S. House Democrats has invested millions in the district as part of its “Red to Blue” program and the U.S. House Leadership GOP’s top PAC announced a $2.4 million ad buy, further signaling of its competitiveness as each party wrestles for control of the lower chamber.

In June, Miller-Meeks staved off an under-funded challenger in the Republican primary, winning with 53% of the vote to 41%, according to the state’s certified results. Miller-Meeks’ opponent, minister and advertising business owner David Pautsch, criticized Miller-Meeks as not conservative enough, citing her support for protections of same-sex marriage, voting to certify the 2020 election and her support for exceptions to abortion.

From Jan. 1, 2023, to Sept. 30, Bohannan has outraised Miller-Meeks, according to the most recent Federal Election Commission filings. Bohannan raised $5.2 million compared to Miller-Meeks’ $4.5 million during that period. Bohannan spent close to $4 million and Miller-Meeks spent about $2.8 million. Miller-Meeks had more cash-on-hand by the end of September — about $2 million compared to Bohannan’s nearly $1.3 million.

Republicans have a voter registration advantage as of September in the 1st District, with 147,445 active Republicans (183,076 total active and inactive Republicans) and 126,719 active Democrats (176,932 total). There are 122,478 active no-party voters registered in the district (209,092 total).

“We’ve seen that in a couple places, Republicans have been gaining voter registration over Democrats for a couple of cycles now,” said Tim Hagle, University of Iowa political-science professor. “Which is, of course, one of the reasons why we’ve got Republicans controlling the congressional seats, Senate, Governor and all that.”

Hagle said no-party voters in Iowa have gone for Republicans in the last few cycles, but he said if the Republican message doesn’t resonate anymore, that could change. 

Hagle said Iowa no-party voters tend to favor incumbents. That plus a voter registration advantage could be a good sign for Miller-Meeks, he said, but Harris entering the race and polling better than Biden did in Iowa at the top of the ticket could energize Democrats to turn out in greater numbers. 

The 20-county district is home to Warren, Jasper, Marion, Mahaska, Keokuk, Iowa, Jefferson, Vanburen, Johnson, Washington, Henry, Lee, Jones, Cedar, Muscatine, Louisa, Des Moines, Jackson, Clinton, and Scott counties. That includes the cities of Davenport, Iowa City, Muscatine and Burlington. 

The Democratic challenger, Bohannan, 53, is a University of Iowa law professor who teaches intellectual property law, the First Amendment and competition law.

Bohannan was born in 1971 in Thomasville, Georgia. She grew up in a mobile home in a small town on the Florida-Georgia border, and she frequently cites her backstory — her dad was a construction worker, and her mom was a daycare worker. In high school, her dad got sick with emphysema and lost his health insurance, which she said devastated her family.

Bohannan graduated with a bachelor of science from the University of Florida in 1994 and with a juris doctorate in 1997. She moved to Iowa for a job as a law professor at the University of Iowa.

In 2020, Bohannan unseated a 20-year incumbent Democrat in a primary for an Iowa House seat representing Iowa City. She served one term before launching her 2022 bid to represent southeast Iowa in Congress.

In a recent interview at a downtown Davenport restaurant and bakery, Bohannan said she wanted to run again in 2024 after she said her campaign “established a great foundation in 2022.”

“I think that we made a lot of progress, but we didn’t quite get there,” Bohannan said, adding that it takes a little while for people to get to know a candidate.

She said she saw a lot of excitement around her candidacy in 2022, but by November that year a lot of voters still didn’t know who she was.

“This is really night and day between now and 2022,” Bohannan said. “It’s a presidential year election and that’s just different. People are paying more attention to what’s going on politically. And so, I think that’s number one, a huge difference.”

Incumbent representative and ophthalmologist Miller-Meeks, 69, was born in California and moved to several different states where her father, a master sergeant in the U.S. Air Force, was stationed. She left home at age 16 to enroll in community college and enlisted in the U.S. Army at age of 18, where she served for 24 years as a private, nurse and ophthalmologist. 

Miller-Meeks graduated with a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Texas Christian University, a master’s in education from the University of Southern California, and a medical doctorate from the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio.

She completed her residency in ophthalmology at the University of Iowa and started an ophthalmology practice in 1997 in in Ottumwa. She has lived and continues to own with her husband a 50-acre property in Wapello County. She now claims residency at an apartment in Davenport after redistricting in 2021 pulled Wapello County into a different district. 

A LeClaire Democrat has filed a request for an ethics investigation into whether Miller-Meeks actually resides at her Wapello County home and violated state laws by voting in Scott County. The Miller-Meeks campaign has denied any wrongdoing and called the complaint “frivolous.” 

Miller-Meeks ran for Congress as a Republican in 2008, 2010 and 2014. She was appointed director of the Iowa Department of Public Health between 2010 and her 2014 run.  

In 2018, voters elected Miller-Meeks to the Iowa Senate.

Miller-Meeks ran for Congress again in 2020 after Dave Loebsack opted not to seek reelection. Miller-Meeks won the race against Rita Hart by just six votes after weeks of recounts.

Miller-Meeks won reelection in 2022 against Bohannan by more than 20,000 votes.

In Congress, Miller-Meeks chairs the Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Health, and the Conservative Climate Caucus.

Ahead of November, Miller-Meeks said in an interview from a Davenport construction company’s office, she wasn’t surprised by the analysts forecasting the district to be competitive.

“They’re finally coming to my conclusion, which is that it’s a swing district. It’s a tough, competitive district, and this is a (presidential) election year, so that changes the dynamics,” Miller-Meeks said. “This was a close election in 2020. It will be a close election in 2024. I think that the mechanics of the race are the same and that is, you have to convince voters that you have done a good job, that you’ve been accessible, that you’ve been available.”

Miller-Meeks: if reelected, Miller-Meeks said she would prioritize “pro-growth” policies, such as renewing provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, ramping up U.S. energy production, pushing for a new Farm Bill and reducing illegal immigration.

Miller-Meeks said Congress needs to pass a renewal of the increased child care tax credit that is set to sunset under the Trump-era Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, and pass an energy bill that would expand oil and gas drilling and repeal some regulations because “we need affordable reliable, secure, abundant energy, and we need American homegrown domestic energy.”

“Pro-growth policies that grow the economy, increase job mobility, increase wages to individuals that are right now, struggling with high prices across the board,” Miller-Meeks said. “And then our regulatory structure where there is overregulation … I can tell you as a physician and every business owner can tell you, whether they’re a small business owner, a mom-and-pop shop, whether they’re a large business, that there is overregulation within the federal government that prevents them from growing, from offering more in wages.”

Kent Pilcher, president of Estes Construction, told the small group assembled at his office for an endorsement announcement by the U.S. Chamber that Miller-Meeks persevered throughout her life, including to win the seat.

“She does not give up, she is tenacious,” Pilcher said. “… More importantly, this is not a single-issue election. She does so many other good things, and unfortunately, we’re seeing this try to be a single-issue election and it’s not.”

On immigration, Miller-Meeks has pointed to her support for House Resolution 2, an immigration bill that would put in place stricter requirements for applying for asylum, require employers to verify workers have proper documentation to be living and working in the United States, and build about 900 miles of border wall.

Miller-Meeks also painted herself as someone who would achieve day-to-day work that may not get headlines — such as co-sponsoring the Treat and Reduce Obesity Act and her work on the Veterans Affairs Committee to increase rapid access for mental health and PTSD care and suicide prevention for veterans.

Bohannan: if elected, Bohannan said she’d focus on supporting federal protections for abortion, a greater national investment in public schools, especially rural and small-town schools, and pushing for the ability of Medicare to negotiate prices for more prescription drugs.

She said she was running to represent the entire district, and pointed to her run against a long-time Democratic incumbent in the statehouse as evidence she could buck her party if she needs to. 

“We’ve gotten to a point where, a lot of politicians won’t do anything for their own people if it means giving the other side credit for anything or working with the other side,” Bohannan said. “We have to get away from that.”

Bohannan said she’d like to see an investment in public schools similar to the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which infused billions into infrastructure such as repairing roads, bridges, airports, lock and dam systems, and replacing lead service lines.

And, Bohannan said, she thinks the U.S. should expand the number of medications Medicare can negotiate for and cap the price of insulin for anyone, not just seniors on Medicare.

She said she also wants to bring down the cost of gas and groceries, starting with “holding corporations accountable for price gouging.”

“They jacked up prices during COVID and then they realized that they liked doing that, and they just kept doing it,” Bohannan said. “And those profits are way too high.”

Abortion has emerged as a top issue for Democratic candidates again in 2024, and Bohannan and Miller-Meeks hashed out the issue two years ago, too.

Bohannan has criticized Miller-Meeks for her position on abortion, claiming that Miller-Meeks has championed banning abortions with no exceptions and “can’t be trusted” on the issue.

Miller-Meeks contends that Bohannan deliberately misrepresents her record. Miller-Meeks has said she supports exceptions for rape, incest, life of the mother, and backs protections for fertility treatment in-vitro fertilization.

“She’s signed onto every abortion ban that’s ever been put in front of her and now that it’s election time, she’s trying to sing a different tune, but this is way too important,” Bohannan said. “It’s an issue that has real consequences for women throughout this district.”

Bohannan says she supports returning to federal protections for abortion until fetal viability, returning to the standard set forth in Roe v. Wade and federal protections for IVF.

The Bohannan campaign launched an ad this summer that claims, “Iowa now has one of the strictest abortion bans in the country because of Mariannette Miller-Meeks. And in Congress, she’s pushing to ban all abortions nationwide with no exceptions for rape or incest.”

But Miller-Meeks was not in the Iowa Senate in 2018, when Iowa’s initial ban on abortions after cardiac activity can be detected, nor in 2023, when lawmakers passed the bill again. Miller-Meeks was elected to the state Senate in November 2018, started her term in 2019 and served until 2021 when she was elected to and seated in Congress.

However, Miller-Meeks did sign onto a constitutional amendment in 2019 and 2020 that would have added language to the Iowa constitution expressly stating the constitution did not protect a right to abortion nor require funding for an abortion.

Miller-Meeks has praised the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision which overturned Roe v. Wade, handing decisions about abortion regulations to state legislatures.

Bohannan points to Miller-Meeks co-sponsoring the 2021 Life At Conception Act, which would implement “equal protection for the right to life of each born and preborn human person.”

The act does not specifically mention abortion, penalties, or exceptions in cases of rape, incest, or the woman’s life, nor does it carve out protections for fertility treatments, such as invitro fertilization.

Miller-Meeks did not sign on as a sponsor of the resolution in the current Congress.

She co-sponsored a 15-week federal ban in 2022 on abortion with exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother. 

Miller-Meeks has said she supports in-vitro fertilization. She introduced legislation that would provide up to a $30,000 tax credit for individuals and couples seeking IVF. She did not sign onto a bipartisan bill that aims to put into law federal protections for IVF.