Marco Battaglia announced on June 16 that he will run for Congress in Iowa’s third district as a Libertarian. His platform includes “promoting agricultural and medical freedom,” combating inflation with “sound money and sound economic reasoning,” and being “a voice for peace and prosperity.”

A longtime resident of Des Moines, Battaglia was the Libertarian nominee for Iowa attorney general in 2018 and for lieutenant governor in 2022, on a ticket with Rick Stewart. Libertarians regained major-party status in Iowa following that election, because Stewart received more than 2 percent of the vote for governor.

A Libertarian convention on June 8 nominated Battaglia, along with two other U.S. House candidates: Lone Tree city council member Nicholas Gluba in the first district, and Charles Aldrich in the fourth district. Aldrich was the Libertarian nominee for Iowa’s U.S. Senate seat in 2016; he later was the party’s 2018 candidate in IA-04 and ran for an Iowa House seat in 2022.

The president of the Congressional Leadership Fund (the main super-PAC aligned with U.S. House Republicans) congratulated U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks on her “resounding victory” in the June 4 primary to represent Iowa’s first district.

U.S. Representative Randy Feenstra hailed the “clear message” from fourth district voters, saying he was “humbled by the strong support for our campaign.”

They can spin, but they can’t hide.

Pulling 55 to 60 percent of the vote against an underfunded, first-time candidate is anything but a “resounding” or “strong” performance for a member of Congress.

U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks officially has competition in the 2024 Republican primary to represent Iowa’s first Congressional district. David Pautsch, best known as the founder of the Quad Cities Prayer Breakfast, filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission this month and held a news conference on November 16 to lay out his vision.

Based on what we’ve heard so far, Pautsch won’t give Miller-Meeks anything to worry about. She defeated several well-funded opponents as a non-incumbent candidate for Congress, and will take more advantages into next year’s race as an incumbent.