Take Action Iowa
Hold: IA-03 (Axne), Flips: Senate, IA-01, IA-02
Three Congressional races are worthy of notice in Iowa, despite the fact that Iowa has trended conservative in recent years and backed Trump in both 2016 and 2020. Cook Political Report rates Iowa as Lean R. Democrat Cindy Axne IA-03 defeated incumbent Republican Rep. David Young in 2018 by 2 points, becoming one of two first women to represent Iowa in the House. In 2020, when some first-term Democratic incumbents fell, Axne defeated Young again. Her margin slipped to 1.03 points, which caught the attention of the GOP. The anti-tax group Club for Growth has dropped considerable cash on ads to defeat her. For her part, Axne is building support for her work on expanding affordable health care and issues related to rural areas, such as broadband access. Iowa Congressional Districts are almost acrobatic in their flips. Republicans Ashley Hinson, IA-01, and Mariannette Miller-Meeks, IA-02, are both first-term representatives. Hinson defeated one-term incumbent Democrat Abby Finkenhauer by 2.6 points in 2020. (Finkenhauer now is challenging incumbent Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley.) In IA-02, Miller-Meeks squeaked by in 2020, receiving just 6 votes more than Democrat Rita Hart. In 2018, IA-02 was a comfortable Democratic seat won by Dave Loebsack by 12 percent. In 2022, Democrats are hoping to flip both those seats back to blue.