A campaign of bruises to the bone. Battlefield District in state of the battlefield. Almost 400,000 votes cast. It now appears that the Republican in the race won by a surprisingly narrow margin, which would represent another GOP triumph if the result holds.
The slogan “every voice matters” takes on a recent meaning when such results take shape. Via the Des Moines Register:
After being certified Monday by the state canvassing board, Mariannette Miller-Meeks will become congresswoman-elect in Iowa’s 2nd District. https://t.co/HDRvtDQMed
— Des Moines Register (@DMRegister) November 28, 2020
Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks remains the frontrunner in the congressional race in Iowa’s 2nd District despite Saturday’s recount in Clinton County, which reduced her already single-digit lead to just six votes. Clinton County results completed a recount in Iowa’s 24-county southeast districtwhich stretches from Jasper and Marion counties in the Des Moines metro to Davenport and includes Iowa City and Burlington. The vote will go to the state canvassing board on Monday for approval, which means Miller-Meeks is the official winner. In a statement, Hart’s campaign manager, Zach Meunier, did not say whether the campaign would file a legal challenge in the racethe next elections to the House of Representatives in the country. This would trigger scrutiny by a judicial panel and create ongoing uncertainty about the outcome.
Miller-Meeks’ apparent victory underscores Democrats’ glaring failures in rural America, according to the Associated Press recently reviewed: :
While Democrats swept across cities and suburbs to retake the White House, the party was left behind in immense rural swathes of northern battlegrounds. The party lost House seats in the Midwest, and Democratic Senate challengers in Iowa, Kansas, Montana and North Carolina, all once seen as stern threats to Republican incumbents, fell, some of them challenging. Though Democrats’ problems with rural areas are nothing recent; they are now putting pressure on Biden to start reversing this trend. Failure to do so jeopardizes goals like curbing climate change and winning a Senate majority, especially for GOP Senate seats in Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin will occur in 2022. “The emphasis on Democrats must be to deliver an economic message for rural America,” said Iowa Democrat John Norris, a former candidate for governor. “We have something great to say, but we haven’t put enough emphasis on it.”
Believe it or not, they exist two House races with margins less than 20 votes in total sales:
The stakes in these runoff races are quite high: a majority is not at stake (unlike the runoff in the General Assembly), but they could make the difference between Dems/Pelosi having a majority of four seats (222) or six seats (224). .
— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) November 25, 2020
The fact that Pelosi’s majority will be so slim is already a surprise, as Republican House gains across the country have shocked pundits and operatives on both sides of the aisle. Newest place to formally reverse (over the holiday weekend) was in California, where he was the third GOP pickup in the state:
BREAKING: Republican David Valadao wins election to the U.S. House of Representatives in California’s 21st Congressional District, defeating incumbent Republican TJ Cox. #APrecall at 10:32 PST. #Election2020 #CAelections https://t.co/lGfinjTqT4
— AP Politics (@AP_Politics) November 27, 2020
ALREADY 13 FLIPS!#CA21 @dgvaladao#CA39 @YoungKimCA#CA48 @MichelleSteelCA#FL26 @Carlos GimenezFL#FL27 @MaElviraSalazar#IA01 @hinsonashley#MI03 @VoteMeijer#MN07 @FischbachMN7#NM02 @Yvette4congres#NY11 @NMalliotakis#OK05 @stephaniebice#SC01 @NancyMace#UT04 @BurgessOwens
— Ronna McDaniel (@GOPChairwoman) November 28, 2020
If Mike Garcia holds on to his slim lead in CA-25 (declared victory, but not official), Republicans could be touting the modest but real gains in the Golden State – four seats – over the past year. Right now, Republicans look like they will do just that reached 210 seats in the next Congress, with three undecided races. If their candidates win the two seats they currently lead, that would be 212 seats, meaning Pelosi will preside over the smallest majority in the House of Representatives in decades. It would also mean the GOP would be a few seats away from taking the gavel in 2022. Historically, the opposition gains about twenty places in the first midterm election cycle of the recent president’s term.
UPDATES –
NEW: The Herkimer County BOE has apparently corrected its final, unofficial count. @claudiatenney (R) gets 35 votes, @RepBrindisi (D) 10.
Going into the final turn of this race, Tenney once again leads by 12 votes #NY22
— Josh Rosenblatt (@JRosenblattTV) November 30, 2020
It’s official. The state canvassing board votes unanimously to certify the election results. For, @IowaSOS, @millermeeks
defeated @RitaHartIA by a majority of 6 votes – 196,964 to 196,958. Pate said that #IA02 the race “reinforces the belief that every vote counts and can make a difference.”— Tom Barton (@tjbarton83) November 30, 2020
