Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks spoke at Saunders Park in Mount Pleasant Tuesday evening in front of constituents as part of her “District Blitz” tour. This was her 7th event of the day, as she continues across the district in attempts to raise support ahead of the election in November. Meeks will face off against not one, but two opponents, as democratic challenger Christina Bohannan and Libertarian candidate Nicholas Gluba both seek the seat.
I was able to ask Miller-Meeks a variety of questions after the meeting.
(Q) Yorke – Tell me about your visit to Henry County tonight. Why are you here?
(A) Meeks –“So typically campaigns, as they get closer to election time, will reach out to their constituents or reach out to people. And so we are on our 20 county tour, there are 20 counties in Iowa’s first congressional district, and we’re hitting all of these counties. We typically do that on the official side as well, but we’re doing this on the campaign side, making sure we reach out to people, we’re available to people, we’re there to answer their questions so they can know what we are working on, what bills we have passed, what we’re going to work on in the future, and also ask questions about what they see happening in their federal government.
(Q) – What is the key to winning the contested race against Bohannan and Gluba?
(A) Meeks – “The key to winning is exactly what we are doing now, and that is to continue to reach out, to be accessible, to answer questions, to be all over the district, to be ourselves. To be authentic, to be real. And I think people in Iowa were, you know, because we’re the first in the nation caucus, we’re used to having access to our candidates. So I think that goes a long way. We are going to continue to do all that hard ground work, whether it’s door knocking, having meet and greets, whether it’s being around people. And then we’re also going to raise the money so that we can compete on the airwaves as well.”
(Q) – (Christina) Bohannan has attacked your views on abortion recently. What do you have to say about that? What are your views on abortion?
(A) Meeks – “So I am pro-life with exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother, I’ve been very consistent upon that. Christina Bohannan is lying about my record, but more importantly the extremes on abortion are the democrat party. They voted for a bill, in Congress, that would have abortion up until the birth of the child, so up until birth. That is an extreme position, such as North Korea and China have. That is no in keeping with the majority of Americans or the majority of Iowans. So you have an extreme party who has nothing else to run on, they have high gas prices, high food prices, high interest rates so young people can’t afford a house and don’t think they can get ahead in the United States. They have open borders with record amounts of fentanyl coming across the border, the cartel is in control of the southern border, record number of people and people on the terror watch list, crime has risen. And then you have chaos that is abroad, and this is, uh, these are the people who want to continue to control our country, have nothing to run on so they are going to run on abortion. And they are going to lie about people’s records.”
(Q) – Kamala Harris picked her Vice President candidate pick in Tim Walz, Governor of Minnesota, how do you feel about this?
(A) Meeks – “I think that this is a left-wing progressive that is in-keeping with Kamala Harris extreme California left-wing progressive view. So it’s not a surprise that they’re together. If you want more of the same that we’ve had the past four years, with high food prices, high gas prices, increasing crime, open borders, then they are right in keeping with that. They are responsible for that. People don’t feel that they are doing better than they did four years ago, they think they’re doing worse. And, uh, to me the answer to that is to reelect your congresswoman Marrianette Miller-Meeks, help elect republicans up and down the ballot, and to reelect President Donald Trump.”
She admitted that this will be a “brutal election” as the democrats want her seat back. Bohannon is outraising Meeks so far this cycle, but Meeks doesn’t seem worried. When it comes to the importance of this election, she mentioned that the House must be controlled by republicans. If not, she fears, democrats will attempt to impeach President Trump, if elected, from day one, and that nothing will get done due to constant “disruption”.
Meeks will be meeting with constituents at a fundraising event in Iowa City on September 7th, ahead of the annual Iowa-Iowa State football game.
