The Democrats running in Iowa’s 1st and 3rd Congressional District outraised their Republican during the three month period that ended on June 30, according to the second-quarter campaign fundraising and spending reports published this week by the Federal Election Commission. Christina Bohannan and Lanon Baccam also raised more money than Republican incumbents Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Zach Nunn during the first quarter of 2024, which ran from Jan. 1 to March 31.
Bohannan raised $1,230,196 between April 1 and June 30, while Miller-Meeks raised $846,883. During the first quarter, Bohannan raised more than double the amount Miller-Meeks did, taking in $820,981 compared to $378,901 for the two-term incumbent.
Even when a challenger outraises an incumbent, the incumbent usually maintains an advantage in the amount of cash on hand their campaign has. That changed in the 1st District during the second quarter. As of June 30, the Bohannan campaign had $2,423,860 on hand, while the Miller-Meeks campaign had $2,271,64.
Miller-Meeks still maintains a lead in the total amount of funds raised during this election cycle with $3,566,673 to Bohannan’s overall total of $3,373,652. Miller-Meeks also outspent Bohannan during the entire election cycle as of the end of June, $1,940,903 to $1,044,017, but Bohannan outspent the incumbent during this year’s first quarter, $309,677 to $189,551, as well as during the most recent quarter, $442,398 to $376,390.
Miller-Meeks did face a fellow Republican in the June 4 primary. David Pautsch, best known as the organizer of the annual Quad Cities Prayer Breakfast, announced his campaign last November, saying Miller-Meeks was insufficiently conservative and “too often out of step with the principles of her fellow Republicans and with biblical morality.” Pautsch’s campaign operated on a shoestring budget, and Miller-Meeks was able to ignore him. She ended up defeating Pautsch by 12 percentage points.
Bohannan was unopposed for the Democratic nomination in the 1st District. This is the second time the University of Iowa College of Law professor and former member of the Iowa House of Representatives has run against Miller-Meeks. In 2022, Miller-Meeks defeated Bohannan by 20,173 votes.
In the 3rd Congressional District, Lanon Baccam is making his first run for elective office. The Mount Pleasant native, who served as a combat engineer in Afghanistan and worked in the U.S. Department of Agriculture during the Obama and Biden administrations, will face first-term Rep. Zach Nunn in November’s election. Nunn, a veteran of both the U.S. Air Force and the Iowa Air National Guard, beat incumbent Cindy Axne by 2,145 votes in 2022, which was 0.6 percent of all the votes cast in the race. Axne was the last remaining Democrat in Iowa’s congressional delegation.
Baccam raised $901,528 in the first quarter of 2024 and $1,304,008 in the second. During the same periods, Nunn raised $524,270 and $1,012,704. Nunn still has a substantial advantage in cash on hand as of June 30, with $2,439,075 compared to Baccam’s $1,594,015, and during the whole election cycle has outraised Baccam, $3,990,058 to $2,712,843. The incumbent has also outspent Baccam by more than half-a-million dollars so far in this election cycle, $1,691,962 to $1,118,827, but in the second quarter, Baccam outspent Nunn by more than two-to-one, $863,962 to $421,208.
Baccam faced an opponent in the June 4 primary, while Nunn was unopposed. Baccam scored an easy victory over Melissa Vine, winning 84 percent of the vote.
Bohannan and Baccam are considered as having the best chances of winning among the Democrats running for Congress this year in Iowa, although the most recent Iowa Poll showed majorities of likely voters in all four of the state’s congressional districts said they preferred a Republican candidate over a Democrat. The poll by Selzer & Co., conducted shortly after the June primary, did not use the names of any of the congressional candidates and just asked about party preference in a congressional representative, making the poll of limited usefulness.
Bohannan and Baccam are both running on the same set of standard liberal issues, such as restoring reproductive freedom, protecting LGBTQ rights and ensuring affordable health care. But one notable difference between the two candidates emerged earlier this month.
On July 11, Bohannan issued a written statement saying it is “time for President Biden to withdraw from this campaign and pass the torch to a new generation of leadership.”
“America deserves better than the choice for President we’re currently facing,” she said.
Bohannan has faced strong pushback on social media for her position on Biden’s fitness as a candidate. But because the first public calls for Biden to step aside did not begin until after the president’s June 27 debate with Donald Trump, and Bohannan’s statement came two weeks later, the impact it might have on fundraising won’t be known until after fundraising totals for the third quarter are published in October.
Baccam, who was the deputy state director for the Biden campaign in Iowa in 2020, is not among the small but growing number of Democratic Congress members and candidates publicly calling for Biden to give up.
On the same day Bohannan issued her statement, the Democratic candidate in Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District called for Biden “to pass the baton to Kamala Harris.” Sarah Corkery said Harris “will be ready to fight and make sure we keep our democracy alive.”
Corkery is a first-time candidate. She’s challenging Rep. Ashley Hinson, a former TV news anchor who is in her third term. Hinson beat Liz Mathis, also a well-known former TV news anchor, in 2022 by 8 percentage points.
Corkery, who co-owns a marketing services business in Cedar Falls with her husband, lacks the sort of name recognition Mathis brought to the race. She is considered unlikely to win in the 2nd District, which is increasingly favorable territory for Republicans with the exceptions of Linn and Black Hawk counties.
Corkery is the only Iowa Democratic running for Congress to raise less money in the second quarter of 2024 than the first In the second quarter, Corkery raised $98,166, approximately $8,000 less than she raised in the first quarter. Hinson raised $719,581 in the second quarter, approximately $11,000 more than she did in the first quarter.
In the entire election cycle, Corkery has raised $254,880 and Hinson has raised $4,160,405. At the end of June, Corkery’s campaign had $69,428 on hand, Hinson’s had $1,900,942.
As stark as the money gap between the candidates in the 2nd District is, the gap in the 4th District is even bigger. That’s not surprising, since the 4th is one of the most solidly Republican congressional districts in the country.
This the second time Democrat Ryan Melton, who works in management in the insurance industry, is challenging two-term incumbent Randy Feenstra. Melton understands what an uphill climb it is for a Democrat in the district. In 2022, Feenstra won with 67 percent of the vote.
In the most recent quarter, Melton raised $22,480, a substantial increase from the $13,682 he raised in the previous quarter. Feenstra, on the hand, raised $635,115 in the second quarter. That’s a decline from the first quarter’s $818,411, but he still leads Melton in overall funds raised in this election cycle, $3,709,479 to $59,057. At the end of June, Feenstra had $1,244,649 on hand, and Melton had $20,031.
“I’m not going to out-fundraise most people, but I’m going to out-work them,” Melton told Little Village in April. “And that’s how we’re going to continue to put a dent in the status quo here.”
Melton said running is still worthwhile even in the face of near-certain defeat, because his campaign can help create discussions about “a long-term vision of sustainability, of growth for our communities,” because current state and federal policies are “essentially turning our 4th District into one big open-lot CAFO.”
