Miller-Meeks holds slim lead in Congressional race

With just 282 votes separating the candidates, the race for Iowa's 2nd Congressional District has yet to be called.

With all 24 counties in the district reporting, Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks holds a razor-thin lead over Democrat Rita Hart.

Miller-Meeks appeared to declare victory late Tuesday.

'We know this has been a long night, and we knew this was going to be a very tight race, and we wouldn't know results until later, but with 282 votes from the Secretary of State's Office ahead of our opponent, you are now looking at the new congresswoman from the 2nd Congressional District of Iowa,” Miller-Meeks told supporters at the Riverside Casino late Tuesday night.

About an hour later, Hart's campaign manager Zach Meunier released a statement pointing out that the race is still too close to call.

'Ballots are outstanding and over the coming days we will ensure that Iowans' voices are heard and that remaining votes are counted,” Meunier said in the statement. 'Iowa election law is incredibly clear that absentee ballots postmarked by the day before the election and received by a county auditor by Nov. 9, 2020, must be counted.”

Although the Iowa Secretary of State's office shows that all counties have been counted, the results are not official until county officials canvass the results from their respective counties.

Hart won four of the district's 24 counties, including Jefferson, Johnson, Scott and Clinton counties.

In heavily Democratic Johnson County, Hart carried 70 percent of the vote.

That was to be expected, according to Eric Woolson, a consultant with the Miller-Meeks campaign.

'The 30 percent in Johnson County was our target,” Woolson said Tuesday night. 'We thought that was what we needed to win.”

Both candidates were vying for the seat that Democratic U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack is stepping away from after serving seven terms.

Miller-Meeks, currently a state senator from Ottumwa, ran unsuccessfully against Loebsack in 2008, 2010 and 2014.

She is a practicing opthamologist in Ottumwa, the former director of the Iowa Department of Public Health and a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army.

Hart served in the Iowa State Senate from 2013-19. In 2018, she was Democratic gubernatorial candidate Fred Hubbell's running mate.

Hart is a former teacher. She and her husband own and operate a family farm in Wheatland.