I had no idea that many Iowa counties flipped
(It also contains the only county nationally to go for both Obama and Trump by more than 20 points apiece, leading to it mistakenly being thought of as the largest Republican-swinging county in 2016 - that county was, in fact, Elliott County, Kentucky, which had never voted Republican prior to 2016 and went for Obama in 2012 by 3 points, the worst for a Democrat until the time, before going for Trump in 2016 by more than 40 points.)
Obama won a majority of counties in Iowa in 2008 and nearly carried a majority in 2012. In 2016 and 2020, Clinton and Biden only won six counties each. All of the rural counties carried by Obama in that state are gone for Democrats now.
Exactly. It still does blow my mind that Obama was able to win so many small rural counties in IA that are overwhelmingly white and should have by conventional logic been prime Romney territory. Obama didn't even do that well in rural IL (and IL was his home state).
IA was weird and to a point still is. Obama, for instance, won the White vote. And even still Dems still get more of the White vote than in most states, since winning 45% of the Iowa vote is like winning 40% of the White vote.
