Christina Bohannon, a Democratic candidate in a battleground Iowa district, has faced scrutiny from Republicans over past comments in which she argued the state was viewed as “backward” without diversity training in schools and argued the nation’s founders were motivated by preserving slavery during the Revolutionary War.
Bohannon, a law professor and former Iowa state representative, is making a third attempt to unseat incumbent Republican Marianette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa, in the state’s 1st Congressional District in 2024, losing by less than one percentage point. Razor-thin margins have established this as a high-stakes Republican job. Competitive seats highlighting Bohannon’s past position on diversity, equity and inclusion.
“DEI Queen Christina Bohannon considers George Floyd a role model, and George Washington should be revoked,” Republican National Committee spokesman Jack Kraft said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “Iowans will channel the spirit of 1776 to reject the two-time loser one more time so he can go back to his day job and call all and sundry racists.”
Bohannon made comments under GOP fire in 2021 on the podcast “Under the Dome.”
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Bohannon, then a state representative, said she was “really concerned” about the bill, which would have banned diversity training, including anti-bias training, taught in public schools and universities. She said implicit bias, the unconscious attitude a person may have toward someone based on race, is “very real” and “serious.”
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“I think it would be very divisive if passed,” Bohannon said at the time. “I think it’s going to send a very bad message about Iowa and make it look like such a backward state that doesn’t understand that there are such things as systemic racism.”
Republican Governor Kim Reynolds signed the bill into law in June 2021.
Bohannon also said on the podcast that she was “glad” that Republican-backed Bill 1619, a New York Times initiative to ban the project that says slavery is central to the nation’s founding, failed during the legislative session.
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The 1619 project focuses on the fact that “there were some revolutionary leaders who supported that revolution because they wanted to preserve the institution of slavery,” Bohannon said, adding that there were other reasons for the revolution, such as taxation.
Fox News Digital reached out to Bohannon for comment.
Bohannan has supported diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives as well as police reform and immigrant rights groups for years.
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While in the Iowa Legislature, she co-sponsored a bill requiring implicit bias training for health professionals, but the bill never made it out of committee.
As chair of the University of Iowa Law School’s DEI Committee, she pushed students to support the Black Lives Matter movement following the killing of George Floyd. In a letter to students, he listed five different funds students can donate to, including the Minnesota Freedom Fund and the National Bail Out Fund, both of which support defunding police.
Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol on December 16, 2025 in Washington, DC.
(Getty Images)
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During a candidate forum in 2020, during Bohannon’s first congressional campaign, she said she was “very active” in Activists for Justice of Eastern Iowa, a group focused on abolishing ICE, the Washington Free Beacon reported. A year ago, Bohannon donated money to the Prairieland Freedom Fund to help free illegal immigrants from prison. The Prairieland Freedom Fund seeks to establish a “world without police.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Miller-Meeks’ campaign for comment.
Original article source: ‘Queen of DEI’ running for Congress rips her rural state as ‘backward’ on podcast
