DAVENPORT, Iowa — The recount for the Miller-Meeks and Hart campaigns wrapped up Saturday, when Clinton County finished its recount.
When the election results are complete and certified for Iowa's 2nd Congressional District, we're verifying where it would stand in election history.
Here is what we set out to verify: Is the Rita Hart and Mariannette Miller-Meeks race the tightest race in history for Iowa's 2nd Congressional seat?
Our source is the United States House of Representatives. It publishes election results from each state, dating back to 1920.
Since the 2020 election is not yet certified, the records on the House of Representatives website only includes records up through the 2018 election.
Since 1920, the slimmest margin of victory in Iowa's 2nd Congressional District was 620 votes. That happened in 1938.
But, that wasn't the slimmest margin in the state that year. Iowa had nine congressional districts at that time. The 9th district was won by 339 votes.
The second-slimmest margin of victory for the 2nd Congressional District was in 1990. 1,642 votes separated the two candidates, but this was when Iowa had six congressional districts.
When Mariannette Miller-Meeks challenged Dave Loebsack for the seat in 2008, she lost by 56,440 votes.
Miller-Meeks cut that lead to 13,976 votes when she challenged, and lost to, Loebsack again in 2014. That year was also the slimmest margin of victory in the 2nd district since the 2012 election -- when four congressional districts started being used.
If the unofficial election results from the Secretary of State's office holds true and are certified by the state, we can verify Mariannette Miller-Meeks's six vote lead over Rita Hart would be the slimmest margin of victory in the 2nd Congressional District's history since at least 1920.