Catching up on news from last week, Mariannette Miller-Meeks filed a formal statement of candidacy in Iowa’s second district with the Federal Election Commission (hat tip to Greg Hauenstein). An ophthalmologist based in Ottumwa, Miller-Meeks was the Republican nominee against Representative Dave Loebsack in both 2008 and 2010. She served as director of the Iowa Department of Public Health from early 2011 until resigning last month.
I have not seen any formal campaign announcement yet from Miller-Meeks, but she has been attending central committee meetings and other Republican events around the 24 counties in IA-02 for some time. During the past month, she has met with GOP central committee members in Johnson County, Marion County, and Mahaska County. She attended an off-year caucus in the Quad Cities (Scott County). Last week Miller-Meeks tweeted a photo of her campaign co-chairs in Muscatine County–the home base for State Representative Mark Lofgren, who announced his campaign in IA-02 last summer. Lofgren has a lot of support in the GOP establishment but has not raised much money for his Congressional bid.
1 Comment
2nd District
MMM should stop trying to win the 2nd. She seems to be light years ahead of most of the U.S. Senate candidates. I have no idea why Ernst was hand picked by the Branstad team to run, instead of MMM.
Most votes in the U.S. Senate are going to be party line anyway so any independent that you would get from a MMM or a Bruce Braley for that matter would be minimal.
I assume social conservatives may be afraid that MMM would be too tolerant towards social moderates, and at the end of the day I think her votes on public spending would be closer to Newt Gingrich or Jack Kemp, and not Rand Paul/Mike Lee types. I guess the hard-liners don’t want her for a statewide run because she might actually try to serve people that hold a variety of views.
Loebsack is weak anyway, but he certainly isn’t beatable. Dave’s biggest issue will always be that he simply doesn’t have the natural political skills that the rest of Iowa’s Congressional District has.
I like the fact that his voting record has moderated and he doesn’t just represent Iowa City, but he struggles because his speaking style just doesn’t enthuse activists.
moderateiadem Mon 17 Feb 3:05 PM