In Iowa's 1st Congressional District, Republican incumbent Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks is defending her U.S. House seat against Democrat Christina Bohannan for the third election in a row. The candidates are doing what they can to persuade voters, but some powerful factors shaping the race are out of their control.
The district has a history of tight races. Bohannan lost last time by 799 votes. Miller-Meeks won the seat on her fourth try in 2020 by just 6 votes.
This year, several Republican House seats across the country seem poised to flip. The national moment might be giving Bohannan her best chance of winning yet.
In the Republican's favor, Miller-Meeks stood in the Oval Office with President Donald Trump when he announced plans for a $15 billion steel plant in Lee County.
Thanks to federal coordination with Mesabi Metallics and its India-based parent company, Essar Group, Miller-Meeks was able to promise jobs, housing and economic development in a depressed area of the state a month before election night.
"This is part of making life more affordable in Lee County," she said on IPR's River to River. "Our river counties have had businesses leave. It's been a goal to bring more business and economic development to those areas."
It's an idea that any politician is slow to criticize, including Bohannan.
"I would love to see 1,700 really good paying jobs come in there, so I hope that this goes well and is successful," Bohannan said.
She and other Democrats did raise concerns over the billion-dollar tax incentive package that Iowa lawmakers made available to Mesabi Metallics.
It's not clear whether the attention on the steel plant will move the needle enough for Republicans.
Colin Case, an assistant professor of American politics at the University of Iowa, said it's possible that concerns around the war in Iran may prove more powerful than excitement about local investment. Overall, he said Trump isn't doing Republican candidates many favors.
"Trump's overall disapproval at about 33 or so percentage points, depending on where you look, is creating a very unfavorable environment for Republican candidates," Case said.
A few weeks after the announcement, a top GOP super PAC pulled funding from Miller-Meeks' campaign, signaling a loss of faith.
Other outside factors are making this race more complicated, too. Michael Bridgford is an independent candidate in the race, which Bohannan and Miller-Meeks haven't dealt with before.
Despite a well-funded campaign and growing national attention on independents, Case doesn't see Bridgford winning. He suspects Bridgford may pull votes away from Bohannan.
But Bridgford does think he can win. He said he's not just siphoning off Democratic votes.
"Farmers are getting hit from all sides, from the trade wars, from higher input costs," Bridgford said. "I don't think a lot of those voters are going to swing all the way to vote for a Democrat. I grew up on a seventh-generation family farm. I think that I could represent them much better than how they're being represented today."
Meanwhile, a high-profile governor's race is also playing out in Iowa between current Auditor Rob Sand, a Democrat, and Republican Zach Lahn. The Cook Political Report rates the race leaning in favor of Sand. That would usually help the blue ticket all the way down. But Sand has criticized the two-party system for his entire campaign, including a stop at Grinnell College in early October.
"If you want to be a Republican or Democrat, great, good for you, knock yourself out," Sand said. "But we shouldn't be forced to be one, either to participate as a voter or a candidate."
Case at the University of Iowa said Sand isn't being a team player for the Democrats and may even attract more moderate Republicans to the polls.
But with the momentum Democrats are gaining in other congressional races around the country, Case said Iowa's results likely won't decide if Democrats take the majority in the U.S. House.
"Given the current political climate, Democrats have a very high chance of winning the House, even if they didn't actually take back this seat," he said.
Instead, Case said, the impact of Iowa's 1st District may just be on the size of a Democratic majority.
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