On Tuesday, Shannon Lundgren became the fourth Republican to join the race in Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District. Lundgren currently serves in the Iowa House of Representatives District 65, which covers parts of Dubuque County. She and her husband, Charlie, own the Trackside Bar & Grill in Peosta.
“I’m running because I love Iowa and I love America, and I believe my community and my country needs me to fight for common sense, conservative values, lower taxes, less regulations, deporting illegal immigrants and ensuring biological men aren’t competing in [sic] our daughters in sports or using their restrooms,” Lundgren said in the campaign announcement video she posted online Tuesday.
Lundgren was first elected to the Iowa House in 2016, and in her video Lundgren boasted about being an early endorser of Donald Trump during that election cycle.
“I endorsed President Trump in 2015 and stood with him at one of his first rallies in Iowa,” she said. “… I was proud to stand with him in 2015, and in Congress I will have his back 100 percent as we continue to cut taxes, secure our borders and put America first.”
On her campaign site, which declares in all caps at the top of its homepage TRUMP SUPPORTER SINCE DAY ONE, Lundgren has four photographs. Two of them are her standing next to a grinning Trump, who is giving the camera a thumbs up.
The campaign site does not have an issues section, but does have a three-paragraph biographical sketch that says, as a member of the Iowa House, Lundgren has worked “to promote policies that benefit families and local businesses,” and points out that she is the first woman to chair the House Commerce Committee. Neither the site nor Lundgren’s campaign video mention her work to ban abortion, even though she has been one of the more aggressive members of the legislature when it comes to restricting the reproductive rights of Iowans.
In January 2017, Lundgren’s first month in the legislature, she was the House floor manager for a so-called “fetal heartbeat” abortion ban. Eight years ago, however, a bill that effectively banned abortions in the state was considered too extreme by many Iowa Republicans, and the day after the bill was introduced, House leaders announced it would not go forward. Lundgren continued to work for restrictive abortion measures in the House, and when another heartbeat bill was introduced in 2018, Lundgren was again its House floor manager. That year’s bill was pushed through the legislature with just Republican votes and Gov. Reynolds signed it into law, but it was struck down by a Polk County District Court judge for violating constitutionally protected rights of Iowans.
In 2023, Lundgren was again the House floor manager for a bill establishing a ban on almost all abortions after cardiac activity can be detected in an embryo by an ultrasound probe. (Activity can generally be detected six weeks into a pregnancy, before an embryo is considered a fetus and before a heart has formed.) Again, it passed with just Republican votes and was signed into law by Gov. Reynolds.
The almost total abortion ban Lundgren worked to create has been the law in Iowa since last year, but she has continued her work to restrict reproductive choices. During this year’s legislature session, Lundgren was the floor manager for HSB 186, a bill that placed new restrictions on medication abortions, and require doctors to provide patients with what major medical organizations consider misinformation.
The bill would have mandated that mifepristone, one of the two drugs commonly used in self-administered medication abortions and is often received by patients through the mail following a telehealth checkup, only be administered by a physician in a clinic, hospital or physician’s office, and only after the patients signs a consent form for just that medication. Doctors would also be forced to provide a patient with legislature-approved language about “reversing” a medication abortion, even though the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) has said “Claims regarding abortion ‘reversal’ treatment are not based on science and do not meet clinical standards.”
According to ACOG, a bill like HSB 186 constitutes “an interference in the patient-clinical relationship and contradicts a fundamental principle of medical ethics” and is “based on unproven, unethical research.”
Lundgren provided one of the two votes needed to advance the bill through the subcommittee stage. It was subsequently approved by the Republican majority on the Health and Human Services Committee, but did not receive a floor vote in this year’s session.
In her announcement video, Lundgren said, “I will travel across northeast Iowa to earn every single vote. We will work hard, and we will keep this seat red.”
In addition to Lundgren, former Congressman Rod Blum, state Sen. Charley McClintock and Joe Mitchell, who served in the Iowa House from 2019 to 2023, are running for the Republican nomination in Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District.
