Iowa is rapidly trending republican much faster then it's neighbors WI and MN.

[The Chill Moderate Republican]

Why is Iowa trending so much rapidly for the republican party? according to my research, all three of these states have very similar urban to rural populations. I have found out that Iowa had a much higher percentage of whites hovering in the upper 80%. Minnesota and Wisconsin had white percentages in the lower 80s. How did Iowa shift more dramatically to the Republican party?

One major hypothesis is that Iowans had a much greater feeling that they were living in the Midwest then their other neighbors so they bought trump's message. I think another great point is that it's slowly gaining itself more closely to its more conservative neighbors like Nebraska and South Dakota trying to place itself in the "Plain States. (don't judge that last point)

Either way, trump is changing the map with Iowa. with Obama winning the state by only 5%, Donald Trump managed to win the state by almost 10%. a real shocker since the nation moved about 3%. more republican in the 

[Skill and Chance]

It doesn't have any large cities.  Duh.

[Nyvin]

No Large Metros

Much more Religious

Way less educated

Less Diverse

[RINO Tom]

No Large Metros

Much more Religious

Way less educated

Less Diverse

I like how this one election gave all you red avatars this massive boner for the fantasy that you are a part of this educated party, or that a college degree is some signal of being a Democrat.  If anything, having less than a high school degree is the only thing we can definitively, election after election, tie to your voters.

[Nyvin]

No Large Metros

Much more Religious

Way less educated

Less Diverse

I like how this one election gave all you red avatars this massive boner for the fantasy that you are a part of this educated party, or that a college degree is some signal of being a Democrat.  If anything, having less than a high school degree is the only thing we can definitively, election after election, tie to your voters.

He's talking about the trend from 2012 to 2016.   That trend most definitely was tied to education levels.

[RINO Tom]

No Large Metros

Much more Religious

Way less educated

Less Diverse

I like how this one election gave all you red avatars this massive boner for the fantasy that you are a part of this educated party, or that a college degree is some signal of being a Democrat.  If anything, having less than a high school degree is the only thing we can definitively, election after election, tie to your voters.

He's talking about the trend from 2012 to 2016.   That trend most definitely was tied to education levels.

Ah, my bad.

[TDAS04]

No Large Metros

Much more Religious

Way less educated

Less Diverse

I like how this one election gave all you red avatars this massive boner for the fantasy that you are a part of this educated party, or that a college degree is some signal of being a Democrat.  If anything, having less than a high school degree is the only thing we can definitively, election after election, tie to your voters.

Trends matter, and trends are what this thread is about.  The education trend existed before 2016.  Obama performed considerably better among the well-educated than Democrats had before, and Trump (IIRC, you didn't vote for him) as the current GOP leader has accelerated that trend.  As long as the Republicans are lead by the Trumpsters, they won't be the thinking man's party.  Trump is not Ford, let alone Lincoln.

Maybe Democrats still lead among high school dropouts, but Hillary also carried postgraduate voters by a large margin.  The Democrats' favorable correlation with voters' increased education increases when looking at white voters alone.

2016 may be just one election, but I'm not sure Republicans will be able to shed their association with Donald Trump so easily in the near future.

[RINO Tom]

No Large Metros

Much more Religious

Way less educated

Less Diverse

I like how this one election gave all you red avatars this massive boner for the fantasy that you are a part of this educated party, or that a college degree is some signal of being a Democrat.  If anything, having less than a high school degree is the only thing we can definitively, election after election, tie to your voters.

Trends matter, and trends are what this thread is about.  The education trend existed before 2016.  Obama performed considerably better among the well-educated than Democrats had before, and Trump (IIRC, you didn't vote for him) as the current GOP leader has accelerated that trend.  As long as the Republicans are lead by the Trumpsters, they won't be the thinking man's party.  Trump is not Ford, let alone Lincoln.

Maybe Democrats still lead among high school dropouts, but Hillary also carried postgraduate voters by a large margin.  The Democrats' favorable correlation with voters' increased education increases when looking at white voters alone.

2016 may be just one election, but I'm not sure Republicans will be able to shed their association with Donald Trump so easily in the near future.

Exactly, and as someone who is the EXACT demographic that is supposedly moving toward the Democratic Party because of a distaste for Trump, I am extremely skeptical - based on my anecdotal real-life experiences - that these folks won't remain loyal downballot Republicans and, most likely, Republican voters once Trump is off the ballot.

[Del Tachi]

No Large Metros

Much more Religious

Way less educated

Less Diverse

I like how this one election gave all you red avatars this massive boner for the fantasy that you are a part of this educated party, or that a college degree is some signal of being a Democrat.  If anything, having less than a high school degree is the only thing we can definitively, election after election, tie to your voters.

Trends matter, and trends are what this thread is about.  The education trend existed before 2016.  Obama performed considerably better among the well-educated than Democrats had before, and Trump (IIRC, you didn't vote for him) as the current GOP leader has accelerated that trend.  As long as the Republicans are lead by the Trumpsters, they won't be the thinking man's party.  Trump is not Ford, let alone Lincoln.

Maybe Democrats still lead among high school dropouts, but Hillary also carried postgraduate voters by a large margin.  The Democrats' favorable correlation with voters' increased education increases when looking at white voters alone.

2016 may be just one election, but I'm not sure Republicans will be able to shed their association with Donald Trump so easily in the near future.

Exactly, and as someone who is the EXACT demographic that is supposedly moving toward the Democratic Party because of a distaste for Trump, I am extremely skeptical - based on my anecdotal real-life experiences - that these folks won't remain loyal downballot Republicans and, most likely, Republican voters once Trump is off the ballot.

Depends at how tranformative Trump is as a party leader; looking at how Fox News (which is still the primary source of news for a vast majority of Republicans) is doubling-down on defending him despite his recent scandals and even taking cues from the Alt-Right, I say that by 2024 Trump's style of rhetoric will be par for the course for just about all Republican politicians.

And recent elections in Kansas and Georgia seem to indicate that Republicans have been bleeding down-ballot as well.  We will see if Coffman, Roskam and Issa get kicked out in 2018 - that would be the most damning indication that the GOP brand is perpetually damaged in educated suburbs.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Dems pickups in the House are in Iowa with Blum.

This is the end of the decade of the rise of Republicanism, trends of Iowa and Ohio will not be much of a factor in 2020, when Dems go after Joni Ernst, eventhough the govs race is all but lost in 2018

[Figueira]

Iowa trended Republican from 2012 to 2016. Whether it "is trending" Republican remains to be seen.

[Devils30]

Sanders obviously would have done much better in the upper midwest and we don't know if a 2020 Democratic nominee will be from this wing of the party yet. Guessing it will be a left leaning Bernie type though.

[Bus Wanker]

Sanders obviously would have done much better in the upper midwest and we don't know if a 2020 Democratic nominee will be from this wing of the party yet. Guessing it will be a left leaning Bernie type though.

That would've been my assumption too, except Russ Feingold lost WI by an even larger margin than Clinton. Feingold is a Bernie type Democrat. I'm not convinced that they would've embraced Bernie any more than they did Hillary, except maybe due to the perception that he's more sincere trustworthy. I think it's entirely possible that personality plays a much bigger role than policies. How else do we explain states voting for two vastly different politicians 4 years apart?

[Wikipedia delenda est]

No Large Metros

Much more Religious

Way less educated

Less Diverse

Iowa has one of the highest high school graduation rates of any state, at 91.8%.

[Kingpoleon]

No Large Metros

Much more Religious

Way less educated

Less Diverse

I like how this one election gave all you red avatars this massive boner for the fantasy that you are a part of this educated party, or that a college degree is some signal of being a Democrat.  If anything, having less than a high school degree is the only thing we can definitively, election after election, tie to your voters.

Trends matter, and trends are what this thread is about.  The education trend existed before 2016.  Obama performed considerably better among the well-educated than Democrats had before, and Trump (IIRC, you didn't vote for him) as the current GOP leader has accelerated that trend.  As long as the Republicans are lead by the Trumpsters, they won't be the thinking man's party.  Trump is not Ford, let alone Lincoln.

Maybe Democrats still lead among high school dropouts, but Hillary also carried postgraduate voters by a large margin.  The Democrats' favorable correlation with voters' increased education increases when looking at white voters alone.

2016 may be just one election, but I'm not sure Republicans will be able to shed their association with Donald Trump so easily in the near future.

1. Ford was considered an idiot by most Democrats.
2. There is not now and never has been and never will be a thinking man's party - a political party smarter than the other.
3.
"Every thinking person will vote for you!" - Anonymous Supporter
"That's not enough; I need a majority!" - Adlai Stevenson

[libertpaulian]

No Large Metros

Much more Religious

Way less educated

Less Diverse

Iowa has one of the highest high school graduation rates of any state, at 91.8%.

I think AKCreative is referring to undergraduate and/or post-graduate education.

[JA]

No Large Metros

Much more Religious

Way less educated

Less Diverse

Iowa has one of the highest high school graduation rates of any state, at 91.8%.

I think AKCreative is referring to undergraduate and/or post-graduate education.

Iowa and Wisconsin have similar post-secondary educational attainment.

Percentage of population 25 years and older with a Bachelor's Degree...

26.7% - Iowa
33.7% - Minnesota
27.8% - Wisconsin

What really separates Iowa from Minnesota and Wisconsin are its Non-Hispanic White share of the population...

87.4% - Iowa
81.7% - Minnesota
82.4% - Wisconsin

... its type of Christianity (which is significantly more Evangelical Protestantism in Iowa)...

28% - Iowa
19% - Minnesota
22% - Wisconsin

... and its degree of religiosity.

Iowa - 53% say religion is very important in their lives, 36% say they attend worship services at least weekly, 50% say they pray daily, and 66% say they believe in God with absolute certainty
Minnesota - 46% say religion is very important in their lives, 34% say they attend worship services at least weekly, 47% say they pray daily, and 56% say they believe in God with absolute certainty
Wisconsin - 44% say religion is very important in their lives, 37% say they attend worship services at least weekly, 46% say they pray daily, and 56% say they believe in God with absolute certainty

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

How do we know that Iowa is trending GOP, Grassley, Portman who much more popular than the average GOPer got votes for Trump in the state; than otherwise would.

Joni Ernest is on the ballot, and she is vulnerable.  As well as Blum in 2018.  It is a rural state in the midwest; however, Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden would have played better than Clinton.

[TDAS04]

1. Ford was considered an idiot by most Democrats.

Touché.

But they didn't see Trump coming.

[PragmaticPopulist]

I'm not convinced Iowa's rightward trend is the new normal. Trump got less votes than Obama did in 2012. It's true that Iowa is not as urbanized as WI and MN though, and this trend feels a bit similar to West Virginia's trend to the right in 2000.

[Tekken_Guy]

Iowa's a small state without a cosmopolitan metro like the Twin Cities or even a Milwaukee-like area. It's a largely rural state in character.

Its college town (Iowa City) is very tiny compared to Madison.

It's less diverse. Largely a white Christian land.

[RINO Tom]

Iowa's a small state without a cosmopolitan metro like the Twin Cities or even a Milwaukee-like area. It's a largely rural state in character.

Its college town (Iowa City) is very tiny compared to Madison.

It's less diverse. Largely a white Christian land.

Lazy analysis like this ignores that a huge chunk of GOP votes usually comes from the Des Moines suburbs + Cedar Rapids suburbs, some of the wealthiest and most educated parts of the state.

[MT Treasurer]

Lazy analysis like this ignores that a huge chunk of GOP votes usually comes from the Des Moines suburbs + Cedar Rapids suburbs, some of the wealthiest and most educated parts of the state.

I wouldn't really say that those surrounding counties are very "suburban" (or heavily Republican, for that matter). Or are you implying that the more "suburban" parts of Lynn and Polk County are voting strongly Republican?

[Tekken_Guy]

Iowa's a small state without a cosmopolitan metro like the Twin Cities or even a Milwaukee-like area. It's a largely rural state in character.

Its college town (Iowa City) is very tiny compared to Madison.

It's less diverse. Largely a white Christian land.

Lazy analysis like this ignores that a huge chunk of GOP votes usually comes from the Des Moines suburbs + Cedar Rapids suburbs, some of the wealthiest and most educated parts of the state.

They're suburbs to medium sized cities still. Not really comparable to the Twin Cities' suburbs.

[RINO Tom]

Lazy analysis like this ignores that a huge chunk of GOP votes usually comes from the Des Moines suburbs + Cedar Rapids suburbs, some of the wealthiest and most educated parts of the state.

I wouldn't really say that those surrounding counties are very "suburban" (or heavily Republican, for that matter). Or are you implying that the more "suburban" parts of Lynn and Polk County are voting strongly Republican?

We can quip about the definition of suburban, but those people don't really live "rural" lives, and those counties are much more populated.  Trump got 35% of his votes JUST from counties that Clinton won.  He got 17% just from the Des Moines area, and when you add up all of the "major metro" counties (Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Iowa City, Cedar Falls/Waterloo, Ames, the Quad Cities, Sioux City, Dubuque and Council Bluffs/Omaha suburbs), half of all of his votes came just from those 15 counties.  Was Clinton's support even more concentrated?  Of course.  But this myth that a Republican rural electorate can outvote an urban/suburban Democratic one - in literally a single state in this country - needs to die a quick death.