Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks made a stop in Keosauqua on Friday, October 30th, as part of the final week of her Triple M Tour, her fourth 20-county tour of the general election cycle, meeting with constituents at Troublesome Creek Outfitters.
Miller-Meeks, the Republican incumbent, is facing Democratic challenger Christina Bohannan in a third consecutive rematch for Iowa’s 1st Congressional District. Miller-Meeks won the seat in 2020 by six votes, then held it in 2022 and 2024 by under 1,000 votes after recounts. She described her race as currently the most targeted congressional race in the country.
“We are the number one target. It is a very expensive race,” she told supporters. “Both sides all in, this race is already $48 million. It may be more expensive than the New York races, and we’re not in New York.”
She expressed confidence based on what she described as her ground-level read of the race, despite national polling and ratings showing her as vulnerable.
“I have been here before. If I believed in polls, I wouldn’t be in Congress,” she said, referencing a poll released before her 2024 victory that showed her losing by 16 points. “What I feel on the ground is nothing like what the polls say. It’s nothing like when Charlie Cook changed our race to lean Democrat. And when I was asked about it, I said, well, Charlie Cook isn’t in Iowa. He’s not on the ground. He’s not with us. He’s not out meeting people. And it’s a totally different ballgame.”
Also appearing at the event were state Rep. Jeff Shipley, Republican of District 87 up for re-election with Miller-Meeks, Van Buren County Sheriff Brad Hudson, and various constituents of Van Buren County.
Campaign Funding
Miller-Meeks addressed the Congressional Leadership Fund’s decision to pull money from her race, framing it as a sign of her campaign’s strength rather than a weakness.
“They’re pulling money out of our race because we’ve run a great campaign. We’ve done everything that we should be and there were other candidates and incumbents who didn’t do that. They were having to shore up other races that they thought were safe,” she said. “We had, at the beginning of October, we had $2.6 million in cash on hand because we worked hard since last January, knowing this was going to be a brutal reelection. We did our job.”
Her Opponent
Miller-Meeks was sharply critical of Bohannan’s voting record, citing votes she said were out of step with Iowa values. She alleged Bohannan, while chair of a DEI program at the University of Iowa law school, encouraged students to donate to a fund that supported defunding police, abolishing prisons, forced sanctuary cities and abolishing ICE, and also gave money to a group that bailed out detained criminal illegal immigrants.
She cited specific votes, including on Medicaid-funded gender transition surgeries, big tech data privacy legislation, and sex offender registry requirements.
“Her votes went to have sex change surgeries, paid for by Medicaid, by taxpayer dollars, including for criminals and prisoners. Her votes went to save the big tech companies so they can continue to steal your data. You (Shipley) voted yes on that. She voted no, one of two Democrats, and owns hundreds of thousands of dollars in big tech stock, Apple, Meta, Google. I wonder if her vote had anything to do with that. I own no individual stock. And when I say members of Congress shouldn’t insider trade, I mean it. I back it up. I back my words up with my actions. She voted not to give health care benefits to police. She voted to make it easier for sex offenders to get off the registry. That’s her voting record. And especially the sex offenders off the registry, when she was asked why she was one of 12 Democrats that did that, she never gave an answer for that,” Miller-Meeks said.
“So when I break with my party, I’m doing common sense things that help Iowa, mainstream things. When she breaks with her party, not only does she not vote with the Republicans, she doesn’t even vote with the Democrats. She votes so far extreme, she is not even with her own party. And it’s vote after vote after vote, and you just have to look at it. So when I see those TV ads, I’m going, you know, it’s just a magic trick. It’s just a whole bunch of bells and whistles and sleight of hand. She’s going to say something over here, but the way she votes and the way she spends her money is totally different and totally opposite. Her money and her votes don’t match. Her words do.”
Data Centers and AI
When a constituent raised concerns about data centers and artificial intelligence, Miller-Meeks said transparency and community engagement must come first.
“Data centers, AI companies — they need to come talk to communities. And by that, I don’t mean having a meeting with the mayor or the city council or the county supervisors. I mean open forums, open to the public, just like Iowa Army Ammunition Plant did recently, having an open house in Middletown,” she said. “What’s the electricity going to be? How much water use is there going to be? It’s a closed-loop system. Are they going to pay property tax? What jobs? Are there job losses? And the federal government has a role in securing job placement or job retraining.”
She cited the House-passed Rate Payer Protection Act, which she said would require data centers to disclose electricity usage and other impacts, but noted Senate Democrats have blocked the bill in committee.
“Guess who hasn’t passed the Rate Payer Protection Act? The Senate Democrats. And then they accuse us, and their ads accuse us of wanting data centers and not supporting the public. No. We passed the Rate Payer Protection Act,” she said.
She also raised concerns about a moratorium on data centers creating an opening for China to operate without oversight.
“What scares the bejesus out of me is that we put a moratorium on data centers and allow the Chinese Communist Party to go unattended with no one to check them. There has to be a check, but there has to be transparency. First and foremost, there has to be transparency. In a community, talking with people, full transparency, and then communities decide what they want. And we put the guardrails for AI on the federal level,” she said.
On artificial intelligence more broadly, Miller-Meeks described legislation she has introduced targeting chatbots that engage teenagers on topics of depression and suicide. She described testimony from parents who discovered their children had been encouraged by AI chatbots not to tell their parents about suicidal thoughts.
“The algorithm and the AI is telling them, ‘We know how you feel. You can count on us. We’re the only person you can trust.’ This is true. These are transcripts. And then if the teenager is talking about suicide, they’ll tell them how to commit suicide. And then they’ll say, don’t tell your parents. This is only between us. I’m the only one you can trust. Just like your best friend would do. And these teenagers have committed suicide. It is heart-wrenching,” she said.
Her bill, the Spy Kids Act, would require AI chatbots to disclose they are not licensed counselors and cannot provide mental health support.
Daylight Saving Time
Asked about the stalled federal effort to end the twice-yearly clock change, Miller-Meeks said she supports ending the practice but wants clocks to stay on standard time rather than moving permanently to daylight saving time.
“I’m all for not changing the clocks, but my viewpoint is different. I think it should stay at central time and not move ahead. I know people want more daylight, and this is controversial, so if you’re recording this, I’ll lose votes over this,” she said jokingly. “There actually are some health implications to changing the clock. My concern is this — in the northern climates and in Iowa where you have winter, in the winter, like you’ve got three months where it may be 8:30 in the morning before it’s light, so you’ve got kids going to school, catching school buses where it’s still dark. That’s what concerns me. Most people want to have more light in the evening when they’re off work. I’m really concerned about kids going to school. And you’ve got rural areas, you’ve got two-lane roads.”
Steel Mill and Farm Bill
Miller-Meeks discussed the planned steel mill coming to southeast Iowa, describing it as a $15 billion investment with 6,000 construction jobs and a target of producing steel by 2030. She credited steel tariffs and the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act as making the project possible and said her office helped facilitate federal permitting through the Federal Permitting Council, as well as working through EPA and FEMA on Mississippi River-related issues.
“It is a very big deal, and it is transformational. They want to start construction in 2027. That’s 6,000 construction jobs. They want steel to go out of the mill by 2030. And, you know, what a lot of people don’t realize is that the vertical integration is critical. Why? China and India, especially China, have been dumping steel in the U.S. for decades. And 98% of U.S. steel is recycled, recycled material, which is great. We’ve got Girdow. And we’re a steel district. People don’t realize — I’m in the steel caucus. And I’m not a Pennsylvanian, but I’m in the steel caucus. And so this vertical integration between mining it in Minnesota, bringing it down here to mill it, and then making it in America, that allows us to be cost competitive with China. And so it’s hugely important that we can be cost competitive with China, the jobs that it’s going to create. And guess who’s going to use that steel? SSAB, Vermeer, Kinze, John Deere, every one of our manufacturers here in our district will be using that steel, and they will get it mined, milled, and made here in America at a cost competitive rate rather than having crap come in from China,” she said.
“The very things that make that possible — the steel tariffs and the working families tax cut — my opponent said she would have gotten rid of them and that they’re all bad. So that steel mill would not be coming to Iowa, would not be in America if it were up to the Democrats. Tariffs that create jobs are good, and tariffs that raise prices are bad, which is why we support the steel mill tariff, because it’s helped us. It helps to support our steel industry here, and it brings jobs here,” she said.
On the Farm Bill, she said the House passed a version in 2024 but blamed Senate Democrats for blocking it, and said key provisions including crop insurance, conservation programs and market access have been moved into a reconciliation package. She also described ongoing efforts to establish a biochar institute at Iowa State University, calling it a potential resource for farmers dealing with soil quality and water filtration.
Q&A with Ottumwa Radio
Following the meet and greet, Rep. Miller-Meeks answered questions from Ottumwa Radio’s A.J. Roe:
Question: What do you see as the top priority for Van Buren County constituents heading into the next session?
Answer: “Well, I think for Van Buren County, we want economic growth. They’re also a, you know, agricultural-based group. So what we’ve done passing the Farm Bill, whether they’re conservation practices, new market access, the year-round E15 that we passed, our work on biofuels, all of those things are really important in Van Buren County. And then the tourism that the county attracts. So, you know, being able to support that, I think all of those things are important here. They don’t want higher taxes. So no tax on tips, no tax on overtimes. The relief of taxation on Social Security for 90% of Iowa seniors in a community like Keosauqua and Van Buren County, that is extremely important given the nature of their population and the demographics. So those things are important. And then just being able to have the freedom to be able to, you know, raise your children here in a rural area, that’s important to them too. So I think the things that we have done, they’re very supportive of, and we’re going to continue to do that. The steel mill that’s coming to Southeast Iowa, even if it’s not here in Van Buren County, that’s important to Van Buren County. It is close enough that we know that there are people here that will have jobs there, and that we know that the economics of sourcing things in Iowa will filter through to Van Buren County and they will see benefit of that as well.”
Question: How do you respond to constituents who feel rural Iowa is overlooked at the federal level?
Answer: “I would say that most of the people in rural Iowa know me for living in rural Iowa and visiting every county continually. So I have a presence here, and people will say, you know, I’ll be at an American Legion breakfast. I’ll be here at the Van Buren County Veterans, you know, breakfast on the first Thursday of the month. As a matter of fact, I’ve got my cap that says Van Buren County Veterans. I’m known as a person that makes it their mission to be out into all communities as much as possible. When we’re not in session, so when we have fly out day and end votes on a Friday morning, I will be in the district visiting places until I go back on Monday morning. Even if it’s only two days, I’m not on vacation. I’m out working and serving the people of Iowa. The other thing is our funding shows that. So our community project fundings, we’ve got money for the Van Buren County Hospital here. We’ve got money for Henry County. We’ve got money to reopen the Keokuk County Hospital, money to help the Muscatine Hospital, in Fairfield, the Libertyville Loop Road, as well as a little teeny road, you know, to pave the road to the Pekin School. All of those things, people see that as value in their community and working for their community. You know, Keokuk County and Sigourney, we got a road in Keokuk County that, you know, the Iowa Department of Transportation, they actually thanked me for getting funding for that road because it had been on the state list for over 20 years. And people feel neglected, but they know with me, they’re never neglected and we put them first and we’re here to serve them.”
Question: Van Buren County Hospital is celebrating its 75th anniversary in a few weeks. What is your assessment of rural hospital funding at the federal level, and what are you doing to ensure critical access hospitals like VBCH remain viable?
Answer: “Well, first and foremost, where we can shift money to them, we will do that. $209 million has already been granted in Iowa out of the Rural Healthcare Transformation Fund. That fund was set up to support rural hospitals. Originally, it was $25 billion from the Senate. I and others in rural communities worked to get that up to $50 billion. Iowa is the first state in the country to actually disburse those grants. We had two roundtables with Director Garcia and the Medicaid Director and all of the hospitals and the clinics. We had two roundtables before the submission so we could be on time with our submission. We had a roundtable after the first grants were awarded to find out what we could do better. We brought Dr. Oz here. And so, very importantly, asked Dr. Oz, if other states don’t get their act together and don’t submit applications and grants, can we get more money? And he said, yes. So, and that was confirmed when they announced a round of funding to Knoxville Public Health that’s going to help the entire district on cancer prevention. And so, that fund is very important. We were instrumental in getting the waiver from Dr. Oz and CMS for 150 new residency slots and the money for those. More doctors trained in Iowa and doing their residency in Iowa means more doctors stay. So, it’s not just the hospital, but it’s having the doctors to be able to staff those hospitals. So, that was critically important. And then, individually, what we have done for individual hospitals and our community project funding, we try to be careful because, you know, you have critical access hospitals, you have in-between hospitals, and we want to be fair to all of them. But we work very hard in order to get them funding, make sure they have providers so that they can see patients, new lab equipment, new robotic equipment, new cat scanners, 3D mammography, all of those equipment, and then the workforce. We’ve been helping. We have been able and instrumental and constantly fighting for to bring to rural Iowa.”
Question: You were instrumental in the road project funding up by Pekin in Jefferson County — could you describe your involvement in that, and what future federal infrastructure funding opportunities you see, like here in Van Buren County?
Answer: “Well, first and foremost, Congress has the powers of the person appropriation. So, it’s Congress’s job to direct where money should go. And community project funding, which I voted for when I first came into Congress, I see that as the role of Congress as an independent, co-equal branch of government. So, we’re not increasing the deficit, which I think sometimes we forget about the deficit and the national debt. And it’s very important to keep that in mind. We have what the budget amounts are going to be for all the various committees. There’s 12 of them. And infrastructure, roads and infrastructure is one. And so, we have our set funding. But within that set funding, members of Congress are granted the opportunity to seek applications and requests for funding. And it can go into various different buckets. And so, roads and bridges is one of those that’s very important. Healthcare is another very important thing. Commerce is another. And so, what we do is that we solicit applications. We start talking to our counties, to elected leaders, to non-profits. We start talking to them in January of the year, and solicit applications in March. And then, we go through all the applications. My staff goes through them. Then, I go through all of them. We pick the top 20. From the top 20, I then interview the top 20. And then, from there, we are allowed to pick 15 of those. And then, we submit them. Once we submit them and have our priorities, we then send them to the Appropriations Committee. We work hard through the subcommittee process to make sure they’re approved. Then, we work through the committee process. Then, we work it on the floor to make sure members of Congress vote for them. So, these projects, this funding, it wouldn’t happen if it weren’t for the member of Congress directing it, guiding, and advocating for it. They wouldn’t happen. And so, it’s something we take very seriously. It is very important. We have 20 counties. So, our larger counties will do two projects. But at least every other year, we try to get projects for our smaller counties. It’s equal opportunity. I know as being a state senator, I always felt that everything went to Des Moines and Iowa City and Cedar Rapids and Sioux City. We’re making sure that the money filters out of the big cities and all the way down here to the Missouri border, the Iowa-Missouri border. So, those projects are extremely important. It is the job of members of Congress. I can tell you this. Whether the President is Republican or Democrat, they don’t know what we need down here in Van Buren County or in Jefferson County. They don’t know. They have no clue what the needs of people are. But because I am constantly in the district, constantly meeting people, working with people, talking to elected officials, talking to hospital administrators, we know what’s important and we know what they value. It’s why we did Cascade Bridge in Burlington. That iconic structure connecting Crapo Park to downtown had been decades. And it was so wanted by the people of Burlington. And there were great projects. I mean, we’ve done sewer separations. We’ve done water treatment facilities. Why? Because a small town with mostly retirees can’t afford to raise the water rates enough to pay for those sewer separations. So, getting money for those communities is extremely important. But you only know that if you’re a member of Congress who is doing the job of serving their district and meeting with people.”
Her communications director, Anthony Fakhoury, added that Miller-Meeks has secured more than $87 million in community project funding since coming to Congress, along with roughly $50 million for Army munitions, for a total of more than $130 million directed back to Iowa communities.
Miller-Meeks closed with a message to voters: “Voting is a privilege, and I really encourage everybody to get out and vote.”
