Christina Bohannan launches bid for 1st Congressional District seat

Democrat Christina Bohannan will once again run for the state’s 1st District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives after a nearly neck-and-neck race with incumbent Mariannette Miller-Meeks in 2024.

Bohannan, a University of Iowa law professor and former member of the Iowa House of Representatives, announced her 2026 congressional campaign Tuesday morning in a news release and said in an afternoon interview her phone has been “blowing up” with messages from people excited about the race. She added she’s received many small donations as well, which she said was “heartening” as she does not take donations from political action committees.

“The outpouring of support has been tremendous,” Bohannan said. “There’s a real excitement here, I feel it, it’s contagious, and I am just so excited to get started.”

Miller-Meeks was reelected to the district in the 2024 general election, beating Bohannan by just under 800 votes that were confirmed by a vote recount requested by Bohannan. The district spans across eastern and southeastern Iowa, including Iowa City, Davenport and Indianola. Bohannan also ran for the seat in 2022, losing with 47% of the vote to 53% for the Republican.

Over the past four years, Bohannan said she’s traveled to all parts of the district to speak with Iowans in their homes and businesses, and has found many people dealing with unreasonably high costs of living, from young families to seniors, as well as issues with their health care. Bohannan said she understands these struggles well, having grown up in a family that had to choose between putting food on the table and paying for prescription medicine for her father.

The constituents she’s spoken with have fallen all across the political perspective, Bohannan said, and she’s done her best to show them that she is an “independent thinker” who believes her own politics matter much less than the needs of the district.

It was hearing from people about the troubles they’re facing and the encouragement she received from supporters that led Bohannan to run again, she said.

“I have gotten to know people. I know what people are facing in the district, the joys and also the challenges,” Bohannan said. “And they have gotten to know me, and they know that I would be a strong independent voice for them in Washington, and that I would always put Iowa first.”

Bohannan said one of the big differences between her and Miller-Meeks is that, if elected, she won’t bring her own or outside political agendas to office, when Miller-Meeks has voted against the wants and needs of Iowans while in office. These include voting in favor of tariffs that will hurt Iowan pocketbooks, Bohannan said and voting for Medicaid cuts, among other decisions.

“People are fed up. They know that (Miller-Meeks) is not looking out for them,” Bohannan said. “She is voting the way that her party bosses and her billionaire donors and corporate special interests are telling her to vote rather than how they need her to vote.”

Other Democrats joining the fray include former legislator Bob Krause and Travis Terrell, a patient access specialist at University of Iowa Health Care.

Bohannan said Democrats’ chances of winning the general election against Miller-Meeks are going to come down to the candidate’s experience and the relationships they’ve formed. She said she outpaces her primary opponents in both of those criteria.

“I am really the only person in this race who has any chance of defeating Representative Miller-Meeks at a time when our representative democracy is really at stake, and when everyday Iowans’ ability to get ahead and not just get by is really at stake,” Bohannan said.