Iowa has certified its election results. Now the recounts begin.
Every county in Iowa has now certified the results of the election, opening the door for candidates whose races are within 1 percentage point to request recounts. There are a surprising number of close races in the state: a number of legislative seats are within the recount threshold, and so is the 1st Congressional District.
In that race, Democrat Christina Bohannan has already requested a recount of her 802-vote loss to incumbent Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks. This will be the second time that Miller-Meeks's election was subjected to a recount; in her first bid for Congress in 2020, she won over Democrat Rita Hart by just 6 votes. Under Iowa state law, each county in the district has 18 days from the original certification date to complete the recount, so we should have final results in the race by Dec. 1.
In addition to the 1st Congressional District, there are two state Senate seats whose winners were decided by less than 50 votes, both located just outside of Des Moines. In District 20, incumbent Democrat Nate Boulton trails Republican Mike Pike by 44 votes, and has already signaled that he intends to request a recount. In District 14, incumbent Democrat Sarah Trone Garriott is leading by just 24 votes, though the Republican challenger Mark Hanson has not made clear whether he will request a recount in that race. There are at least two other state Senate seats within the recount range, though the margins are higher in those seats, and a recount would be much less likely to impact the outcome.
There are also three state House races that are within the recount range in Iowa, though it's not known yet whether candidates in those races will request a recount. The outcome might not matter that much: Iowa Republicans already earned a supermajority in the state legislature, regardless of the outcomes in the potentially contested seats. And, of course, it's worth noting that recounts rarely change the results of an election.