Why is Iowa so Democratic?

[Torie]

One reason Iowa is different, is that it has next to no military presence, and is very dovish. It is also dependent on government subsidies for agriculture and ethanol. And it has a rather substantial union base in a host of industrial towns making agricultural implements and other related agricultural products and the like, and not much in the way of swaths of GOP exurbs. It has next to no minorities, off which Anglos might bounce off of, and react politically by drifting to the opposite party. It also has a rather sizable Yankee presence (Protestant folks who originally hailed from New England, sometimes with pit stops in places in-between, such as upstate New York), and Yankees among Anglos across the Fruited Plain, tend to be rather Dem relatively speaking, because they tend to be more liberal on social issues - and less religious. (My ancestors from Iowa, on both my grandmother's and grandfather's side, were Yankee stock, and fit that pattern.) Finally, Iowa does not have much of an entrepreneurial culture. The entrepreneurs left the state long ago.  I have next to no one left in my clan in Iowa.  The issue all moved out - mostly to California - where a surprising number did in fact realize their dreams, and then some.