Republicans were trying Tuesday to sweep Iowa’s four seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, pushing to oust a Democratic incumbent and to reelect two first-term congresswomen.
If they win all four races, it would be the first time since 1994 that a Republican would win every seat in Iowa’s House delegation. They were hoping to capitalize on a conservative electorate unhappy with Democrat Joe Biden’s performance as president, the direction of the economy and rising costs tied to inflation.
But U.S. Rep. Cindy Axne, a two-term Democrat whose district includes Des Moines and its fast-growing suburbs, was trying to hang on to her seat in a tight race against GOP state Sen. Zach Nunn.
Nunn has criticized Axne for largely supporting the policies of President Biden, who is deeply unpopular in the state. He has also tried to capitalize on questions about Axne’s stock purchases involving companies overseen by the financial services committee she sits on and her vote for the Inflation Reduction Act by proxy while she was on a family vacation in France.
Axne has attacked Nunn as an anti-abortion extremist, following June's U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down a federal right to abortion. She has pointed to his support in a televised debate before the GOP primary in June to ban abortion without exceptions, even in cases of rape, incest and the life of the mother. Nunn has since softened his tone.
Axne’s two victories have been decided by razor-thin margins, unseating David Young in 2018 by 7,709 votes and defeating him by 6,208 votes in a 2020 rematch.
When Axne beat Young in 2018, Democrats won three out of Iowa’s four congressional races. But the state has seen a decade-long shift from the center to the right, as rural voters without college degrees abandon the Democratic Party.
New congressional maps, drawn by a nonpartisan commission and approved last year by the GOP-controlled Legislature, also gave the party a chance for a sweep. Axne's new district remains closely politically divided but now includes several counties with large Republican majorities she did not previously represent.
The other districts included a heavily Republican area of western Iowa, where GOP Rep. Randy Feenstra cruised to reelection over Democrat Ryan Melton on Tuesday.
Votes were being counted in two other competitive races.
In southeastern Iowa, GOP U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks was trying to earn a second term in the House after winning by just six votes in 2020, in the closest congressional race in decades. She was in a close race against state Rep. Christina Bohannan, a University of Iowa law professor.
In northeastern Iowa, Republican U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson was trying to fend off a challenge from Democratic state Sen. Liz Mathis in a hard-fought race between two former television news anchors.
