Sarah Trone Garriott, a Democratic state senator and Lutheran minister, defeated Representative Zach Nunn, Republican of Iowa, according to The Associated Press, flipping a key seat to help her party win control of the House.
Ms. Trone Garriott’s victory over Mr. Nunn, a two-term incumbent who had closely aligned himself with President Trump, was a major breakthrough for Democrats in a district that Mr. Nunn had won twice. Republicans had invested millions of dollars there to defend one of their most vulnerable incumbents.
It was also a rebuke of the Trump administration’s economic agenda in a politically divided stretch of central and southern Iowa, where Ms. Trone Garriott had made rising costs, health care cuts and the economic consequences of the war in Iran central to her campaign.
Throughout the race, Ms. Trone Garriott sought to cast Mr. Nunn as a politician more concerned with protecting the president and his wealthy supporters than with the financial struggles of ordinary Iowans.
“Families are paying too much for groceries, health care and child care, and people are tired of politicians in Washington who look out for themselves,” she said last month, summarizing her central argument.
Her victory demonstrated the potency of that message in Iowa’s Third Congressional District, which encompasses Des Moines, its fast-growing suburbs and a broad swath of rural Iowa where Republicans have maintained considerable political strength.
A former Air Force intelligence officer, Mr. Nunn, 47, had spent much of his time in Congress as a steadfast supporter of Mr. Trump’s agenda. He repeatedly backed legislation that cut federal Medicaid spending, declined to break with the president over his sweeping tariffs and for months supported the war in Iran.
But as polling showed growing dissatisfaction with the war and its economic consequences, Mr. Nunn sought to distance himself from the administration. In September, after repeatedly rejecting efforts to restrict the president’s military authority, he joined a small group of Republicans who voted to curtail Mr. Trump’s ability to continue waging the war.
The shift was not enough to save him.
Ms. Trone Garriott, who had opposed the war, repeatedly tied the military operation to rising gasoline and fertilizer prices, arguing that Iowa families and farmers were paying the price for a conflict Congress had never authorized.
She also attacked Mr. Nunn’s support for the Republican domestic policy law that reduced Medicaid spending, accusing him of endangering access to health care in rural communities already struggling to keep hospitals and clinics open.
Ms. Trone Garriott, who defeated a powerful Republican incumbent to win her State Senate seat, held public town halls in all 21 counties of the congressional district, making her accessibility to constituents a central contrast with Mr. Nunn.
She also proved to be a formidable fund-raiser, bringing in more than $8 million by late October, substantially more than Mr. Nunn’s approximately $6 million. Outside Republican groups poured millions into defending his seat even as some of the party’s most powerful super PACs withdrew support from another vulnerable Iowa incumbent, Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks.
Mr. Nunn had demonstrated considerable political staying power, rooted in his popularity beyond the Democratic stronghold of Des Moines. But Ms. Trone Garriott appealed to suburban voters and sought to cut into the large margins Republicans traditionally enjoyed in rural communities.
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