Is Iowa a Republican State Now?

[Mr.Phips]

Incredibly hard to argue that it isn’t at this point.

[Schiff for Senate]

Eerie foreshadowing...Most of what the original post said still applies today, and at the presidential level IA is now 12 points to the right of the country.

3/4 Republican Representatives
2 Republican Senators
A Republican Governor
95% of the Electorate in 2014 was White According to Exit Polls
Joni Ernst Won White Women, and White Men by 51% and 58% respectively
39% of Iowans Considered themselves conservative in 2014, compared to 23% Liberals
Joni Ernst Won Independents 53-41
Republicans Comprise 37% of the Electorate Compared to 32% Democrats
High school graduate (22%)
57% Ernst
Some college/assoc. degree (29%)
52% Ernst
College graduate (31%)
57% Ernst
82% of Iowans Attend Religious Services at Least Occasionally
40% Attend Weekly
38% are White Evangelical Born Again Christians
57% View the Democrats Unfavorable Compared to 49% Viewing the Republicans Equivalently


So, Has Iowa Transitioned into a Republican State as Trends are Suggesting?

Thanks:) Maybe Atlas should listen to me more hahaha

Well, to be honest, IA shifted red in the Age of Trump. The 3-1 map, Ernst's resounding win, and the governor of IA winning reelection by so much, can be largely attributed to the fact that the governor, all four representative, and Ernst's seat, were up in 2014, a GOP wave year. Since IA01, IA02 and IA03 are all basically swing districts, IA01 flipped as part of the GOP wave. IA03 and IA04 were already held by the GOP, and IA02 had popular incumbent Dave Loebsack (D), who survived the wave year due to his popularity. In fact, four years later things were different - the House delegation was 3-1 for the Democrats. It's likely the reason the GOP  kept both Senate seats is that neither was up in 2018. In 2020, 2014 statistics still apply, which is concerning for IA Democrats because, while 2014 was a red year, 2020 was a bluer year. 2014 was just two years after Obama carried IA by a solid 6 points (and swept IA01, IA02 and IA03). This post doesn't really apply in 2015, since 2014 did cause shifts in IA's delegation,  but in 2020, it does. IA wasn't a red state in 2014 but basically is at this point. (Ernst's predecessor in the Senate, Tom Harkin, a Democrat, won reelection in 2008 with over 60% of the vote, carrying 96 out of 99 counties.) Interesting how IA has come full circle.

[Nightcore Nationalist]

Iowa is as solidly GOP as Virginia is solidly Democratic.

Also I love D32123's sig

[Chips]

You did an impressive job. I myself had a feeling around that time that Iowa was about to become a leaning GOP state based on my expectations that the next Republican nominee that was successful would win the state as well as general trends.

[MT Treasurer]

There you go again.

Peeps, Iowa having turned into a reliably Republican state at the federal and increasingly state level is not the by-product of some "once-in-a-lifetime Trump phenomenon" but, like in VA/CO, the inevitable result of changing party coalitions and an increasingly (sub)urbanized, diverse, coastal Democratic Party that was already starting to experience a serious erosion of support in rural/small-town, white, working-class/industrial, culturally less liberal, (increasingly) non-college-educated, and (increasingly) less affluent areas — it was the demographic/cultural realities on the ground and not one single candidate that paved the way for those shifts. When you combine that with the fact that Iowa Republicans held up better than other swing state Republicans among voters with a college degree/higher income (in part but not solely due to a high proportion of Evangelical voters), you have all the makings of a red state.

For some context about Trump's supposedly 'unique' GE strength in IA and the warning signs totally 'not being there' for Democrats before 2016:

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=219890.0
https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=224904.0

Iowa is lean Republican, whether that counts as a Republican state is subjective. It's definitely drawn to Trump as a person, that much is clear.

...It’s not?

Opinion of Donald Trump (2016): 39% Favorable, 59% Unfavorable (-20)
Opinion of Hillary Clinton (2016): 41% Favorable, 57% Unfavorable (-16)

https://edition.cnn.com/election/2016/results/exit-polls/iowa/president

Views of Donald Trump (2020): 49% Favorable, 50% Unfavorable (-1)

https://edition.cnn.com/election/2020/exit-polls/president/iowa

No one was seriously considering Donald Trump a 'good fit' for 'Iowa Nice' before he won the state by 10 points in 2016; in fact, people on this forum and outside of it were adamant about his demeanor and temperament (and even his brand of conservatism!) playing poorly in the state. Even if you take the opposite view and argue that Iowa was uniquely drawn to his brand, it’s a really unpersuasive case given that the state* has elected countless Republicans in the mold of a more traditional, free-market, social conservative who doesn’t channel cultural grievances or whatever (Branstad, Grassley, to a lesser extent Ernst, Blum in IA-1, etc.). I don’t dispute that some parts of his messaging appealed to the state (e.g. his ostensibly isolationist tendencies), but it’s really hard to argue that this state's transition into a GOP state wasn’t already underway by the time he announced his candidacy. When people chalk Iowa's transformation up to "populism," it’s analogous to attributing the shifts in VA/CO entirely to "Trumpism" as if the GOP totally wasn’t on the verge of completely collapsing in those states even before Trump. Did MO, AR, and LA become reliably red states because of 'Bushism' / 'Bush on the ballot' or because they had no business being competitive in the first place?

Likewise, Ernst winning by the margin she actually won by in in 2014 can’t be explained away by the "red wave" when you actually look how the GOP fared in Senate contests in other Obama states — NH, MI, and MN, to name the three obvious ones, were all GOP underperformances and did not see the same kinds of dramatic shifts as IA — in fact, they looked awfully lot like blue states after that election. Did IA vote 11 points to the left of NH in 2014 because of Brown being a carpetbagger and Braley's 'gaffes' or did it foreshadow the remarkable 11-point gap between those two states in 2016? Even on MSNBC, you already had a discussion among the 2014 election night panel about Iowa in particular trending more conservative in the long term, and I don’t think they foresaw a Trump candidacy back then.

*The same is of course true of other states in the Midwest, e.g. WI (Johnson, Walker) or PA (Toomey). Really a stretch to argue that only Trump could have flipped those states in 2016 given Clinton's abysmal favorability ratings, the fact that he ran behind Congressional Republicans, and the overall poor environment for Democrats after eight years of a polarizing Democrat in the White House. But #populism , I guess.

TL;DR: Iowa is a red state, not a Trump state. None of the high-profile races in 2022 and 2024 will be remotely competitive and most of them will be decided by double-digit margins.