Moderate Margins. Every republican county in state, besides the obvious outlier of Sioux, was won by less than 5,000 votes. 26 of democrats 38 counties was won under 2,000 votes. 56 out of 99 total counties were won under 1,000 votes. Almost all the % margins are under 60% besides the republican outliers of the Northwestern Corner and the democrat outlier of Johnson County (Iowa City). When studying counties and votes, Iowa is probably the most boring state.
I think this is because the state is incredibly white. States with more diversity have more extreme margins in areas. I think there is a limit to the white vote where Vermont is the ceiling and Mississippi is the floor. Souix County to Johnson County. This is why very white cities like Dubuque never go into the 70's for Dems. You will almost never see a county go >70% D when 90+% White. This same kind of narritive can be explained through Western Wisconsin and Southern Minnesota, there don't appear to be high margins simply because the state is very white in the Midwest where whites happen to not be very republican. This, in my view, seems to be why counties in the Midwest are very moderate with a few outliers.
What do you guys think?
Iowa doesn't tend to change much throughout the state. It's very rural though and there aren't any major cities. It's interesting how in the Midwest, rural areas aren't safely Republican while just on the other side of the great plains, we see a 70-30 difference.