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Iowa City Democrat Christina Bohannan launches second U.S. House bid
Bohannan announcement sets up rematch with GOP incumbent Mariannette Miller-Meeks
Tom Barton
Aug. 15, 2023 7:30 am, Updated: Aug. 15, 2023 6:33 pm
Iowa voters will likely see a rematch for a southeastern Iowa congressional seat in 2024.
Iowa City Democrat and former state lawmaker Christina Bohannan announced her second bid for Congress, setting up a rematch against Iowa Republican U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks.
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Bohannan eyeing rematch against Miller-Meeks
“I’m running for Congress because it has never been more clear that we need change,” Bohannan said in a news release ahead of an official campaign kickoff event in Davenport Tuesday evening.
“Time after time, Representative Miller-Meeks has abandoned Iowa values to line up with the most radical members of her party,” Bohannan said in the release. “It’s time we brought back some Iowa common sense. I will always do what’s best for Iowans, to rebuild this country, and rebuild the middle class. Change starts right here, right now.”
Iowa’s 20-county 1st Congressional District includes the cities of Davenport, Iowa City, Burlington and Indianola.
Bohannan lost by nearly 7 percentage points, or more than 20,000 votes, to Miller-Meeks, who won re-election to a second term in November after winning her first election by the slimmest of margins — six votes over Democrat Rita Hart in 2020 after months of recounts.
Miller-Meeks has hammered a national GOP message of reining in federal spending in an effort to reduce inflation, support for law enforcement and ramped up border security. She has made trips to the U.S.-Mexico border with GOP colleagues to meet with Border Patrol agents.
The second-term Iowa congresswoman has also touted bans on transgender girls competing in girls sports, and has called for investigations into FBI conduct and the origin of the coronavirus.
Miller-Meeks, who directed the Iowa Department of Public Health from 2010 through 2013 and was a practicing ophthalmologist in Ottumwa, has been critical of pandemic school closures in 2020 and proposals to mandate the COVID-19 vaccine for schools and large employers.
Miller-Meeks primarily resides in Ottumwa, but since district boundaries were redrawn after the 2020 census, she has also claimed a second residence in LeClaire that belongs to Iowa state Sen. Chris Cournoyer. Miller-Meeks was registered to vote last year at Cournoyer’s home in LeClaire -- which is in Scott County and in the 1st Congressional District -- according to records from the Scott County Auditor’s office, the Quad-City Times previously reported.
"We welcome former state Rep. Bohannan into the 2024 campaign,“ Miller-Meeks’ campaign spokesman Eric Woolson told The Gazette. ”Voters who expect common-sense leadership rejected her in 2022 because her liberal views are completely out of step with the majority of the district — and nothing has changed since then.“
Woolson said the campaign is confident voters will appreciate Miller-Meeks’ efforts to “control inflation, create jobs and fair trade opportunities, defend our values and strengthen our national security."
Bohannan, a University of Iowa professor teaching First Amendment and competition law, focused her campaign on access to health care, abortion and public education. She campaigned on her support for codifying Roe v. Wade and criticized Miller-Meeks for co-sponsoring a proposal that would declare that personhood begins at conception. Miller-Meeks has said she supports a national 15-week ban on abortion with exceptions for rape, incest and life of the woman.
Bohannan also campaigned on lowering prescription drug prices and criticized Miller-Meeks for voting against the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and voting against the Inflation Reduction Act, which allows Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices.
Bohannan said she knows firsthand the struggles many Iowa families face, recounting her family's own struggles growing up in a rural, small town trailer park. She said her father, who did not graduate high school, struggled to provide for the family as a construction worker.
As a teenager, she said her father fell ill from emphysema and had his health insurance canceled, forcing the family to choose between paying for his medicine and paying the family's bills.
“But Christina never gave up, and worked her way through engineering school and then law school,” according to the news release. “Now, Christina is running for Congress because she is fed up with the special interests always getting their way in Washington. Bohannan believes it’s time to give hardworking Iowa families and small businesses a fair shot to get ahead.”
Miller-Meeks had more than $1.1 million cash on hand for the reporting period ending June 30, according to federal campaign filings. That compared to about $25,000 cash on hand left over from Bohannan’s 2022 campaign.
The seat, along with Iowa’s 3rd congressional district seat held by Republican U.S. Rep. Zach Nunn of Bondurant, are key targets for congressional Democrats in their effort to reclaim the House majority.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee included the two Iowa GOP incumbents on its list of 33 competitive Republican-held or open districts across the country its deems “in play” for the 2024 election cycle.
Sarah Watson of the Quad-City Times contributed reporting.
Comments: (319) 398-8499; tom.barton@thegazette.com