Second in a series interpreting the results of Iowa’s 2024 state and federal elections.

The successful Republican effort to knock Libertarians off the ballot in three U.S. House districts may have influenced the outcome in at least one of them.

All three affected Libertarian candidates—Nicholas Gluba in the first Congressional district, Marco Battaglia in the third, and Charles Aldrich in the fourth—indicated that they would continue to run as write-in candidates. Unofficial results show write-in votes for Iowa’s four U.S. House races this year totaled 3,626—about 0.23 percent of the 1,604,965 ballots cast for a Congressional candidate.

When Libertarian candidates have been on the ballot for recent Iowa Congressional elections, they have typically received 2-3 percent of the vote.

AN IMPORTANT FACTOR IN THE FIRST DISTRICT

In IA-01, unofficial results show Republican incumbent Mariannette Miller-Meeks leads Democratic challenger Christina Bohannan by 799 votes (49.98 percent to 49.79 percent). Bohannan has not conceded, and the race has not been called. But it’s unlikely that enough provisional ballots remain to be counted for her to overtake Miller-Meeks. Iowa no longer counts absentee ballots that arrive after election day.

Meanwhile, 963 people wrote in a candidate for the IA-01 race (0.23 percent of the 413,502 ballots cast). If Gluba had been named on the ballot, he would have received many more votes, probably in the range of 2 percent, based on other Iowa Congressional races.

Libertarians are widely viewed as a threat to Republican electoral prospects. That’s why GOP activists represented by a prominent Republican attorney filed the objections to this year’s Libertarian candidates for Congress. It’s also why Iowa’s GOP trifecta changed state law in 2019 to make it more difficult for third-party candidates to qualify for the ballot. (A federal court later struck down the early deadline for third-party candidate filings, but higher signature thresholds remain.)

Gluba’s top campaign issues—supporting gun rights, limiting the federal government’s executive branch power, opposing eminent domain abuse, reducing U.S. entanglements in overseas military conflicts—suggest he would have drawn more votes from conservatives than from those who might otherwise favor Bohannan.

IMPACT ON IA-03 RACE LESS CLEAR

In the third district, unofficial results show Republican incumbent Zach Nunn leading Democrat Lanon Baccam by 15,848 votes (51.78 percent to 47.93 percent). Write-in candidates received 1,197 votes (0.29 percent of the 412,599 ballots).

The combined vote for third-party candidates in the Congressional district covering most of this area was about 3.5 percent in the 2018 and 2020 elections. Both years, Democrat Cindy Axne won while receiving less than 50 percent of the vote. If Battaglia had been named on the ballot, the margin between Nunn and Baccam would have been smaller, but it’s not clear whether that factor would have been enough for Baccam to win.

FEW WRITE-INS FOR OTHER CONGRESSIONAL RACES

Write-in candidates were also a bust in Iowa’s other two Congressional races, which were widely viewed as safe for Republicans.

In the second district, 340 people (0.08 percent of the 405,592 who voted) wrote in a name for Congress. Independent candidate Jody Puffett received another 5,337 votes (1.32 percent). That’s far smaller than the 62,669 vote margin between Republican Ashley Hinson and her Democratic challenger Sarah Corkery (57.0 percent to 41.6 percent).

Another 1,126 people (0.3 percent of 373,272 ballots cast) cast a write-in vote in the fourth Congressional district. Since county auditors don’t release names of write-in candidates unless one of them receives at least 5 percent of votes cast for a given office, it’s not clear how many of those voters preferred the Libertarian Aldrich and how many marked their ballot for former GOP primary challenger Kevin Virgil or someone else.

Obviously, third-party candidates wouldn’t have changed the outcome in Iowa’s reddest district, where Republican Randy Feenstra leads Democrat Ryan Melton by 128,236 votes (67.03 percent to 32.67 percent). But the weak showing for write-ins raises questions about the level of discontent with the incumbent. Virgil received 17,661 votes (just under 40 percent) in this year’s GOP primary against Feenstra and has indicated he is seriously considering another Congressional bid in 2026.

LIBERTARIANS LOSING MAJOR-PARTY STATUS

The Libertarian Party will lose major-party status in Iowa, because presidential candidate Chase Oliver fell far short of the 2 percent threshold, receiving 7,200 votes statewide (0.43 percent). That means the party won’t be able to nominate candidates through the same caucus-to-convention process Iowa Democrats and Republicans can use.

Libertarians held this year’s county conventions on the same night as their precinct caucuses, unaware that Iowa law requires county conventions to be held no earlier than the day after the precinct caucuses. That error was the basis for the successful GOP challenge to the nominating certificates for Gluba, Battaglia, and Aldrich.

If any Libertarians run for Iowa’s U.S. House seats in 2026, they will need to qualify for the ballot the old-fashioned way: by collecting at least 1,726 signatures on nominating petitions, including at least 47 signatures from each of one half of the counties in the district where they are running.