Taxpayers in Iowa could be on the hook for as much as $20,000 for a Democrat-backed recount in the 1st Congressional District — despite local officials privately feeling that incumbent Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks’ lead is “insurmountable.”
Miller-Meeks, 69, had an 801-vote lead when the recount began last week. Since then, her lead against Democrat Christina Bohannan, 53, who requested the recount after her second projected loss to the Iowa Republican, has slipped to just 798 votes, according to the Iowa Secretary of State’s office.
“It was ridiculous. Actually, it was pretty disrespectful, I think, to the taxpayers and to the auditors’ offices,” Lee County Auditor Denise Fraise reflected to The Post. “I know that it’s not going to be a different outcome. That’s just very silly.”
The House GOP’s official campaign arm, the National Republican Congressional Committee, estimated that as of Monday night, the total cost of the recount was about $18,441 and anticipated the cost would swell to $20,000 by Wednesday based on the labor costs for tallying up the votes again.
By law, Fraise’s team as well as the other 19 counties, is required to forge ahead with the recount despite the overwhelming odds that it wouldn’t alter the result.
Under Iowa state law, a candidate can request a recount under any threshold. However, when the margin of the race is 1% or lower, the aspirant requesting it will not have to pony up the bond for it, the Secretary of State’s office told The Post.
“This is a delaying tactic to thwart the will of the people. A recount won’t meaningfully change the outcome of this race as the congresswoman’s lead is mathematically impossible to overcome,” Miller-Meeks’ team told The Post.
“Mariannette was humbled to win the support of the majority of voters and we remain confident Mariannette Miller-Meeks has been re-elected to a third term.”
The race has one of the closest results for House contests in the country. It has already been called by DecisionDeskHQ, though not by the Associated Press which is waiting out the recount.
Bohannan is refusing to concede while hoping for a dramatic turnaround in the recount.
The former Iowa state rep. had put up a stronger fight than the last time she squared off against Miller-Meeks in 2022, when she came up short 46.6% to 53.3%.
“This is one more attempt by the DC Democrats to thwart or delay the will of Iowa voters. This margin of victory is insurmountable. Bohannan is just needlessly costing taxpayers money,” Miller-Meeks’ counsel Alan Ostergren said.
The Post reached out to Bohannan’s campaign for comment.
After her 2022 defeat, Bohannan declined to call Miller-Meeks and concede defeat, according to her team.
“Christina Bohannan refuses to admit she’s a two-time loser because Iowa voters have rejected her extremism once again,” NRCC Spokesman Mike Marinella told The Post.
“Election Denier Bohannan must finally concede and save Iowa taxpayers their hard-earned money from being spent on her phony recount.”
Historically, recounts barely move the needle. In 2020, for example, Miller-Meeks had a 47-vote lead against Democratic candidate Rita Hart that slipped down to only six ballots following the recount.
During the homestretch of the close race, Miller-Meeks was vexed by ads from the Save Western Culture PAC, which registered with the Federal Election Commission in mid-October, concealing its donors.
Save Western Culture PAC blasted out flyers claiming that “Mariannette Miller-Meeks thinks our tax dollars should be sent to an Islamic State.”
The phrasing was eerily similar to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), a US-designated terror group.
“They are so depraved and so desperate that they will stoop to anything,” Miller-Meeks told The Post at the time. “This is the same kind of tactics that desperate people do when they’re losing.”
To this day, it is still not entirely clear in FEC filings where the PAC got its funds, though the group generally intervened in tight House and Senate races and bashed Republican candidates from the right while seemingly angling to prop up third-party Libertarian hopefuls.
Bohannan has said, “All Iowans should feel confident that at the conclusion of this transparent, precinct-level recount process, every lawful vote will be counted and reported accurately.”
Other Democrats have been reluctant to admit defeat in 2024 races as well.
Outgoing Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), for example, similarly took until last Thursday before he conceded defeat to Sen.-elect Dave McCormick (D-Pa.), nearly costing taxpayers $1 million in an attempted recount.
At the time, McCormick was ahead by about 16,000 votes with nearly 7 million ballots counted.