Three key takeaways from the Miller-Meeks-Bohannan results

As we take stock of what happened in 2024 and prepare for the road ahead, the results in the 1st Congressional District show some interesting trends. Here are some key takeaways from Tuesday’s election.

In Iowa’s southeastern congressional district, not only do we not have an official call from the Associated Press late into the week, the narrow margin means we could once again see a lengthy recount.

In 2020, I was on the ground covering US Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks’s last squeaker. And if Democrats decide to pursue that route, you can bet you’ll find me in the small county courthouses and auditors offices that would be the settings of another round two. 

Right now, the parties are out curing ballots. There are many people who voted Tuesday using a provisional ballot. That could be because they didn’t have a valid ID or needed to prove their residence. Through a process called “curing,” campaigns work with voters to get the right documentation to the auditor so that vote can count. Both parties are in the field focused on that work.

They have until the 99 boards of supervisors canvass the results next Tuesday and Wednesday, solidifying the race’s final numbers. After that, any recounts could start. 

While we wait, here are some observations on the results of Miller-Meeks’s contest against Democrat Christina Bohannan. 

Johnson County Democratic surge

If you talked to organizers for Iowa City’s Eastside Dems leading up to this election, the phrase they repeated was that they needed to “make Johnson County as blue as it had ever been.” And while total turnout may have only increased by 621 voters since 2020, Democrats’ work to gin up turnout in Johnson County was successful. Based on the unofficial results, 84,818 turned out to vote in Johnson County—71% of whom cast a ballot for Bohannan.

Perhaps even more importantly, Bohannan avoided the kind of congressional drop-off vote that hurt Rita Hart in 2020. Four years ago, Joe Biden received 59,127 votes in Johnson County, while Hart garnered 56,129, or 2,998 less than the top of the ticket (in a race Hart lost overall by a mere six votes). There were 3,863 “under-votes” in the congressional race that year, meaning people skipped voting in that matchup entirely. 

Democratic congressional candidate Christina Bohannan speaks with students on Friday, Oct. 11, at the University of Iowa. (Christine Valora/Iowa Starting Line)

This time, Bohannan, a professor at the University of Iowa, actually outran Kamala Harris, earning 59,928 votes to Harris’ 58,772 votes in the unofficial total. It appears there were only about 1,700 fewer votes total in the congressional than the presidential contest. Bohannan got 3,147 more votes than Democrat Rita Hart did in Johnson County in 2020, a three percentage point increase. 

One of the administrative challenges that this ever growing number of voters face is wait times at the polls. It was as true in early voting as on Election Day: waits sometimes stretched past an hour. Each precinct and the number of people who can vote at a time become a potential chokepoint. Addressing that issue could be a tremendous boon for Democrats as they continue to rely on Johnson and Scott for the lion’s share of their votes. 

Speaking of Scott…

Scott County’s Split Decision

Following the 2022 midterms, Republicans were ebullient about taking Scott County from Democrats. Scott is the district’s most populous county, and unlike Johnson it is politically purple. For years, it’s been a jewel that folks like Iowa GOP Chair Jeff Kaufmann have called a future Republican pickup. 

Scott County did support President-elect Donald Trump, flipping the county from blue to red from 2020 on the presidential line. But it also backed Democrat Christina Bohannan. 

Vice President Kamala Harris got 42,448 votes in Scott County. Bohannan managed to get 44,866 votes. Not just outperforming Harris, but actually winning a majority of the Scott County’s vote. That three percentage point difference between Bohannan and the top of her ticket is an impressive turn, particularly in comparison to her previous run. 

In 2022, Miller-Meeks carried Scott by 5 percentage points or 2,400 votes. That alone did not explain Bohannan’s 20,000 vote whiff that year.

Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

This year was particularly interesting since unlike Johnson, Scott County’s turnout was down from 2020. There’s around 10,000 people missing from the universe of IA-01 votes in 2024 that were there in 2020; that universe of course includes Republicans and Democrats. Comparing 2020 and 2024, Hart’s winning margin was nearly double Bohannan’s this year. That’s a turnout issue. 

Scott County is a major population center. Finding ways to invest there, to boost turnout seems like a real future for Democrats. If Democrats want Iowa’s 1st, they have to turnout numbers. Not just to minimize losses, but to build long lasting support. 

Clinton County’s Ongoing Republican Transformation

The shift to Trump in Clinton County is real. In 2020, Trump carried the county with 54% of the vote. Fast forward to last Tuesday, he’s running the house with 58%. The shift is real and it will continue to inform the district’s political landscape in a town that used to elect Democrats.

Here’s another county where Bohannan overperformed the top of her ticket. She found 10,000 voters where Harris found 9,000. Given Trump won the county by nearly 20 percentage points, it’s maybe unsurprising that Miller-Meeks was able to overtake Bohannan too. This explains why Randy Meier—by all accounts a good candidate in a former Democratic stronghold—couldn’t overtake incumbent Republican Tom Determann. But history shows us, there is possibility there. 

Just as Bohannan excelled this year in her home county, Hart held onto Clinton by 2 percentage points in 2020. In 2022, Miller-Meeks did really well, carrying 57% of the county. But this year, Democratic organizing minimized Miller-Meeks gains, holding her to 53.6%. 

Clinton is not a low-population stakeholder. It’s got weight. Overcoming the 1,600-vote margin that Miller-Meeks banked in Clinton feels like an important indicator for campaigns in this district going forward.