Iowa Dem’s Populist Working Class Image Collides With Lavish Real Estate and Investments – IJR
Iowa Democrat Christina Bohannan has centered her congressional campaign on a blue-collar biography, repeatedly describing herself as someone who knows “what it’s like to struggle to put food on the table.”
But her own real estate holdings and financial disclosures tell a very different story—one that places her squarely among the upper tier of America’s political class, according to Fox News.
“You know, I know what it’s like to work so hard and to, to still struggle to put food on the table,” Bohannan told a crowd at the Iowa State Fair. Throughout her campaigns—she has run twice before for the same House seat—she has emphasized her childhood in a trailer park and memories of choosing “between putting groceries in the cart and filling prescription drugs.”
She echoed the same message in an interview with Iowa Public Radio, reportedly saying again that “she knows what it’s like to struggle.”
But public records suggest her finances have long since moved far beyond a working-class lifestyle. In June, Bohannan purchased the $1.55 million Iowa City mansion formerly owned by University of Iowa basketball coach Fran McCaffery.
She also owns a waterfront condo in a gated community in Sarasota, Florida—a neighborhood where properties range from roughly $300,000 to over $1 million and require thousands in annual fees.
According to Bohannan’s financial disclosures, the Florida condo has produced up to $50,000 in rental income each year.
Should Christina Bohannan alter her campaign strategy to align more closely with her financial background?
Her filings also show that she and her husband hold more than six figures in individual tech stocks, including Apple, Alphabet, and Meta—investments she has not divested despite promoting an “ETHICS PLAN” that would bar members of Congress from trading individual stocks.
Bohannan is preparing for a rematch with Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks in Iowa’s 1st Congressional District. Earlier this month, she attempted to hit her GOP opponent on “true values,” highlighting a photo that allegedly showed Miller-Meeks sitting in first class on a flight.
“This photo tells you more about Miller-Meeks’ true values than her entire town hall did,” Bohannan wrote.
But the attack backfired when a local district supervisor, Austin Hayek, pointed to Bohannan’s own spending habits.
“Christina Bohannan is concerned with 1st class – weird since she just bought a $1.55 million dollar home,” Hayek commented. “Seems she’s wanting others to share the wealth, but not herself and she cares more about her personal living than the ‘poor.’ Stop the virtue signally [sic].”
As the campaign gears up, Bohannan’s financially comfortable reality is now colliding with the working-class image she’s spent years trying to project.
