A new ad from Iowa Democratic candidate Christina Bohannan features a voter identified as a Republican supporting the nominee, despite voting records showing he’s a registered Democrat.
The advertisement, posted by the 1st Congressional District candidate on Tuesday, includes a testimonial from a Republican resident from Le Claire, Iowa, named Dale, who says in the ad he used to vote for Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA) but won’t this year because she “sold us out.”
“I used to vote for Mariannette Miller-Meeks, but not anymore,” he says.
The ad labels the voter, identified as Dale Zahn, on the screen as a Republican.
But Zahn is not a Republican, according to voting records viewed by the Washington Examiner. He is a registered Democrat, and didn’t move to Iowa until 2024, per the records, when he migrated from Michigan. He also has never been a Republican in Iowa, registering first as an independent.
Zahn has voted in two Iowa elections after voting in Michigan for most of his life: the 2024 general election and the 2026 primary, meaning he likely would have voted for Miller-Meeks just once, in the 2024 election.
Miller-Meeks’s campaign criticized the ad as “fake.”
“Christina Bohannan couldn’t find one real Republican to vouch for her or her radical progressive record of voting against Iowans, so she slapped the label on a registered Democrat who moved to Iowa in 2024 and hoped nobody would notice the lie,” Peter Owens, Miller-Meeks’s campaign manager, told the Washington Examiner in a statement. “Fake endorsements won’t save a campaign built on a fake record.”
Zahn previously lived in Holland, Michigan, according to a LinkedIn account that appears to be his, which lists his job title as “CEO at West Michigan Lakeshore Association of REALTORS.”
A 2017 edition of the Michigan Gaming Newsletter shows Zahn was selected by then-Gov. Rick Snyder (R-MI) to serve as a Republican appointee to the five‐member Michigan Gaming Control Board.
“I thank Dale for his service and I believe his background in real estate will be an asset to this board,” Snyder was quoted as saying at the time.
Dan Driscoll, Bohannan’s campaign manager, told the Washington Examiner in a statement that Zahn, as a “former Miller-Meeks voter, lifelong Republican, and GOP appointee,” was “betrayed by Congresswoman Miller-Meeks — just like so many Iowans — after she voted with her special interest donors to raise costs for Iowa, including backing the tariffs, raising drug and health insurance costs, and giving $70 billion in tax breaks to data centers while they raise electric bills.”
The Washington Examiner has reached out to Zahn for comment.
National Republican Congressional Committee spokeswoman Emily Tuttle said in a statement that “Christina Bohannan is so desperate to hide her record that she’s resorted to deceiving Iowans with a phony narrative.”
“Iowans are smarter than Bohannan gives them credit for, and they’ll see straight through the BS,” she continued.
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Bohannan and Miller-Meeks are locked in a competitive race for Iowa’s 1st District, as Iowa has become a top battleground heading into the November elections due to the Iran war hammering the state’s agricultural sector. Miller-Meeks has attempted to distance herself from the war, calling for a suspension of the federal and state gas tax and a ban on diesel exports.
This is the third straight contest between the pair. Miller-Meeks won the first two, first by 7 points in 2022 and then by about 800 votes in 2024. President Donald Trump carried the southeastern Iowa district by more than 8 points in 2024.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
