Exclusive – Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks: ‘I Am the Poster Child for Every Vote Counts’

MONONGAHELA, Pennsylvania — Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA) told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview that her close election and battle with House Democrats serves as a perfect example of why “every vote counts.”

Miller-Meeks spoke to Breitbart News after House Republicans, including her, unveiled the Commitment to America, the House Republican legislative agenda if Republicans retake the House.

The Iowa congresswoman said her election serves as the perfect example of why “every vote counts.”

Miller-Meeks narrowly defeated Democrat Rita Hart for Iowa’s second congressional district in the 2020 elections, winning by a six-vote margin.

After her Democrat opponent lost that election, which gave House Democrats an even narrower House majority, Hart asked the Democrat-led House Administration Committee to overturn the election results. Despite Iowa officials certifying the election, Hart argued that 22 ballots that had been deemed illegitimate should have been counted.

Rep. Rodney Davis (R-IL), the ranking member of the House Administration Committee, subsequently told Breitbart News that the Democrats were trying to “steal” Miller-Meeks’ duly-elected seat in Congress from her.

Despite the Democrats’ move to overturn the election, Miller-Meeks kept her seat. However, she cautioned in her interview with Breitbart News that this proves that every vote counts during a hotly contested election season.

She explained, “I am the poster child for every vote counts. Every vote counts — every vote. It’s important. And in Iowa, we had made election law changes three years in a row. Every time we made election law changes to secure our elections, more people voted, and we had a record turnout. So it’s very important in Iowa — we can have confidence in our election systems. And I’d like to see more states adopt what we did in Iowa, such as what we saw in Georgia. You can have early elections, get as many people to the polls as possible, make elections safe and secure, have confidence in our election system, and it’s one of the things that we want to do as Republicans.”

Miller-Meeks said that House Republicans hope to earn Americans’ trust by showing the contrast between their plans and Democrats’ lack of a comprehensive plan for the new congressional term.

She said that Republicans want to “first and foremost reach out to the American people as we’ve done in the government — to America, reaching out taking their voices, their concerns, taking them, developing a plan. So you’re looking at no plan or a bad plan. As we can see, you can contrast what’s happened in the past 20 months with a bright and hopeful future to restore hope for people that number one, we’re accountable to them … we’re listening to them.”

She added, “We feel that we know, that we’re around it every single day, and our commitment is to them for a better future.”