Are Iowa and Ohio now red states?

[Coolface Sock #42069]

I'm actually going to go with yes on Iowa and punt on Ohio. There's a reason that Republicans have won by fairly comfortable margins in the last gubernatorial election and both Senate elections.

Iowa became a red state in my book not when Trump won it but when Joni Ernst won the 2014 Senate seat by nine points and Rod Blum was elected and reelected in the first district.

Democrats likely need to win in two of the four districts to win statewide; up until 2014, those two were the first and second districts, the eastern half of the state. Now, the northeast is gone along with the majority of the formerly-blue upper Mississippi valley (kicked away by the increasing influence of SJWs on the party if you ask me); only the second district in the southeast remains Democratic, and if trends continue, it could follow behind the first district in due time. The third district is competitive on paper, but Democrats haven't been able to win there. The fourth district is extremely conservative.

So if you think Dems are going to win Iowa without winning in the first district, you're saying that they're going to flip the third district and start winning it by a significant margin, or they're going to start running up some eye-popping margins in the second (which is heavily WWC and trending right). I know of no evidence to support either of these conclusions.

Until Democrats take back IA-01 or demographics change in some unforeseen manner, Iowa is gone. Should start out as Leans R until then.

Ohio, on the other hand, is more elastic-looking and has many large/medium cities and college towns where Dems could increase turnout. Yeah, the congressional delegation is heavily Republican, but some of that has to do with gerrymandering. John Kasich's and Rob Portman's big statewide victories this year and in 2014 are testaments to each candidate's individual strength as well as that of the Ohio GOP, but I think the jury is still out when it comes to that state's partisan lean overall. I'd look at Ohio as a toss-up state for 2020 even though Trump won big there.