Why did Obama do as well as he did in Iowa?

[Vice President Christian Man]

Without hindsight it wasn’t too shocking but it puzzled me that Obama was able to do as well as he did considering that Trump and other R’s significantly overperformed him after. Was Romney that awful of a fit or was Trump able to engulf some flame that had been missing. What else is puzzling is that state elections have leaned R starting at least in 2010.

[TML]

Obama was able to connect with working-class voters very well. Then Trump came along, and he was able to turn many of these less-educated voters into the Republican column. Nowadays, most of these people don't regard Democrats as having their best interests in mind - although they may not necessarily agree with Republican policy proposals, they also don't trust Democrats to look out for them either.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

I really think this is just a macro-level trend where Ferguson/BLM led to certain race and educational polarizations that caused huge losses in places like Iowa. The electorates before and after 2014 were pretty different.

[ottermax]

Obama has mentioned that the 2009 Henry Louis Gates arrest controversy was one of the turning points in his polling with white voters. Iowa didn't have as dramatic of a swing to the right in 2012 as other states like Indiana, Missouri, or West Virginia, but there was a general shift to the right from 2008 to 2012 in more heavily white states overall compared to more diverse states.

The combination of 2014 Ferguson and the rise of smartphones and social media dominance of the information landscape probably hard coded the trends of polarization.

What remains a bit surprising to me is how well Obama held on to his support in 2012 in some of these states and among white working class voters - which really goes to show that Romney was a terrible candidate for these voters. Unfortunately we haven't really seen a non-Trump aligned election in a while, but the 2022 election showed that Iowa is pretty much gone for Democrats which is really terrible from a Senate perspective as it remains one of the better and easier opportunities for a Senate seat.

That all being said in the 2000s Iowa was quite Republican also (although not at the state and local level), so it will be interesting to see what happens when Republicans move past the Trump era to see if Iowa Republicanism is more of a Trump phenomenon or a bigger shift culturally.

[Gass3268]

I think there is something to be said about Obama being from the state next door. Not enough to win Iowa today, but probably could provide at least a 3-4 bump compared to Hillary or Biden.

[Skill and Chance]

The 2008 crash probably reminded people a lot of the savings and loan failures that created the Farm Crisis.  Historically, this is the one issue that gets Iowa to vote for the left.

[ProgressiveModerate]

To be fair, almost the entire rust-belt saw insane rural swings. The difference is compared to other midwestern states, Iowa had no substantial cities to counterbalance the rightwards shifts of the rurals. Meanwhile, neighboring Illinois barely swung from 2016-2020; the rurals swung hard right in similalr magnitude to Iowa, but Chicago and it's suburbs were able to entirely offset that.

[kwabbit]

Obama has mentioned that the 2009 Henry Louis Gates arrest controversy was one of the turning points in his polling with white voters. Iowa didn't have as dramatic of a swing to the right in 2012 as other states like Indiana, Missouri, or West Virginia, but there was a general shift to the right from 2008 to 2012 in more heavily white states overall compared to more diverse states.

The combination of 2014 Ferguson and the rise of smartphones and social media dominance of the information landscape probably hard coded the trends of polarization.

What remains a bit surprising to me is how well Obama held on to his support in 2012 in some of these states and among white working class voters - which really goes to show that Romney was a terrible candidate for these voters. Unfortunately we haven't really seen a non-Trump aligned election in a while, but the 2022 election showed that Iowa is pretty much gone for Democrats which is really terrible from a Senate perspective as it remains one of the better and easier opportunities for a Senate seat.

That all being said in the 2000s Iowa was quite Republican also (although not at the state and local level), so it will be interesting to see what happens when Republicans move past the Trump era to see if Iowa Republicanism is more of a Trump phenomenon or a bigger shift culturally.

Obama held on to WWC support quite well in places he campaigned in 2012. He dropped off in places that he correctly deemed were unwinnable. He gained ground in a lot of WWC places though. Appalachian Ohio, Youngstown, Upstate New York.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Obama had a certain type of style that played very well in the Midwest. See his 2004 DNC Keynote speech for an example.

[politicallefty]

Obama had a certain type of style that played very well in the Midwest. See his 2004 DNC Keynote speech for an example.

This was what I was gonna say. Mahoning County, OH is one of the most striking places to me. Obama actually increased his margin in 2012 over 2008. After that though, Biden actually did worse than Hillary. Hillary actually held on to the county by a slim margin, but it somehow flipped to Trump in 2020.

[Roll Roons]

Obama had a certain type of style that played very well in the Midwest. See his 2004 DNC Keynote speech for an example.

This was what I was gonna say. Mahoning County, OH is one of the most striking places to me. Obama actually increased his margin in 2012 over 2008. After that though, Biden actually did worse than Hillary. Hillary actually held on to the county by a slim margin, but it somehow flipped to Trump in 2020.

IIRC, it was one of the few counties in the state where Tim Ryan did worse than Biden even though he represented it in Congress for 20 years.

[politicallefty]

Obama had a certain type of style that played very well in the Midwest. See his 2004 DNC Keynote speech for an example.

This was what I was gonna say. Mahoning County, OH is one of the most striking places to me. Obama actually increased his margin in 2012 over 2008. After that though, Biden actually did worse than Hillary. Hillary actually held on to the county by a slim margin, but it somehow flipped to Trump in 2020.

IIRC, it was one of the few counties in the state where Tim Ryan did worse than Biden even though he represented it in Congress for 20 years

Yeah, that's particularly striking as well. I think almost all of Northeastern Ohio swung towards Ryan. He even managed to win back Lorain County. It's gone now, definitely. I really am surprised that Biden couldn't pull the trend back.

[Agonized-Statism]

An aberration in voting patterns started during the 1980s Farm Crisis and a turn toward fiscal conservatism in the GOP under Reagan and ended with Trump's unorthodox populist campaign. A Democrat could be counted on to win Iowa if they were doing well nationally, especially one from the Midwest like Obama.

[🇺🇦 Purple 🦄 Unicorn 🇮🇱]

Different times, different mood.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Different times, different mood.

Iraq alone was enough to flip the state in 2008 from R to D. Considering the political climate in 2008, it's hardly surprising Obama won there by a lot.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Obama had a certain type of style that played very well in the Midwest. See his 2004 DNC Keynote speech for an example.

This was what I was gonna say. Mahoning County, OH is one of the most striking places to me. Obama actually increased his margin in 2012 over 2008. After that though, Biden actually did worse than Hillary. Hillary actually held on to the county by a slim margin, but it somehow flipped to Trump in 2020.

IIRC, it was one of the few counties in the state where Tim Ryan did worse than Biden even though he represented it in Congress for 20 years

Yeah, that's particularly striking as well. I think almost all of Northeastern Ohio swung towards Ryan. He even managed to win back Lorain County. It's gone now, definitely. I really am surprised that Biden couldn't pull the trend back.

I strongly suspect continued influxes of blacks out of the county are lowering the D floor there, and Trump's strong appeal to many working-class types in the Rust Belt did the rest.

[King of Kensington]

Obama had a strong Midwestern appeal.  There was a long history of antiwar sentiment in the Midwest.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Obama had a certain type of style that played very well in the Midwest. See his 2004 DNC Keynote speech for an example.

This was what I was gonna say. Mahoning County, OH is one of the most striking places to me. Obama actually increased his margin in 2012 over 2008. After that though, Biden actually did worse than Hillary. Hillary actually held on to the county by a slim margin, but it somehow flipped to Trump in 2020.

One thing worth noting is that Obama doing significantly better nationwide, he really didn't improve over Kerry or Gore in Mahoning County. When you look at the partisan lean of the County relative to the nation, it's had a pretty clear rightwards trajectory for a quite a while. I think a lot of this can be attributed to ancestral D support already going away pre-Obama and Youngstown itself shrinking.

The bounce left in 2012 is interesting and happened with quite a few industrial working class rural/small-town Ohio Counties. I think it could be attributed to specific campaigning in Ohio and the auto-bailout.

[the artist formerly known as catmusic]

The white working class in those midwestern states used to be a different demographic. Obama connected with those voters in a way the current democratic party hasn't been able to. They should look at what Obama actually ran on and promised because his platform and ideas were why 2008 was a landslide.

[quesaisje]

(1) The state lost loads of manufacturing jobs during the Bush administration, and was in the middle of losing even more as the recession took grip. (2) The Iraq War was particularly unpopular in the Midwest.

Others are correct to mention a candidate effect that strongly favored Obama. He spent a significant amount time in the state during the primaries and he was running as a moderate-progressive Midwestern outsider. (Many analyses of his success in the state in both the general and the primary emphasized how he had made a point of reaching Iowa-adjacent voters in downstate Illinois when he ran for Senate. He had experience campaigning among similar voters in similar places.) John McCain, on the other hand, had a troubled history with the state.

[Vosem]

Iowa actually had a long period of stasis before it zoomed rightwards under Trump. Here are the state's leans relative to the nation since 1988 (when it was the country's second most-Democratic state, after Rhode Island):

IA/US/IA-lean:
1988: D+10/R+7/D+17
1992: D+7/D+5/D+2
1996: D+10/D+8/D+2 (trend slightly left)
2000: D+1/D+0/D+1
2004: R+1/R+3/D+2
2008: D+9/D+7/D+2 (trend slightly left)
2012: D+6/D+4/D+2 (trend slightly right)
2016: R+9/D+2/R+11
2020: R+8/D+5/R+13

Relative to the nation, it doesn't seem like Obama did any better than Clinton/Gore/Kerry, though of course he did better nationally in an absolute sense. (I do still think there's a version of this question which makes sense, though, which calls attention to how Iowa was more Democratic than areas with similar demographics -- even areas with similar demographics in the Driftless Area -- or calls attention to how well Obama did in the Iowa caucus. But IA pretty much had exactly the same lean in every election 1992-2012, inclusive.)

[politicallefty]

Obama had a certain type of style that played very well in the Midwest. See his 2004 DNC Keynote speech for an example.

This was what I was gonna say. Mahoning County, OH is one of the most striking places to me. Obama actually increased his margin in 2012 over 2008. After that though, Biden actually did worse than Hillary. Hillary actually held on to the county by a slim margin, but it somehow flipped to Trump in 2020.

One thing worth noting is that Obama doing significantly better nationwide, he really didn't improve over Kerry or Gore in Mahoning County. When you look at the partisan lean of the County relative to the nation, it's had a pretty clear rightwards trajectory for a quite a while. I think a lot of this can be attributed to ancestral D support already going away pre-Obama and Youngstown itself shrinking.

The bounce left in 2012 is interesting and happened with quite a few industrial working class rural/small-town Ohio Counties. I think it could be attributed to specific campaigning in Ohio and the auto-bailout.

Actually, one thing that's fairly remarkable was Kerry's performance in the state. It was the first time the state voted left-of-centre since 1972. Apart from landslides on either side (adding 1964 and 1920 to the list), you have to go back to 1916 to find the last time it voted more Democratic than the nation as a whole. For most years, Ohio has been stubbornly just to the right of centre.

I think Obama's result in Ohio in 2008 was disappointing at a relative level. The swing map shows a strong result for him in NWOH (interestingly adjacent to the huge swings in Michigan and Indiana). The trend map showed a serious weakness, particularly adjacent to PA and WV. Most of the of attention in that election was focused on the rightward swing in Western PA. However, Obama's 2012 performance in Ohio was quite exceptional considering. The surrounding areas all trending against him. He put up the best performance in Mahoning County since LBJ. He was also only the fourth Democrat to break 60% in Trumbull County, not quite reaching Kerry's record as best performance since LBJ.

(To note one other thing not really related to the above, but Obama lost Pike County in Southern Ohio by just a single vote. Eight years later, it posted the worst swing for Biden in the state, leaving him with just 25% of the countywide vote.)

[ProgressiveModerate]

Obama had a certain type of style that played very well in the Midwest. See his 2004 DNC Keynote speech for an example.

This was what I was gonna say. Mahoning County, OH is one of the most striking places to me. Obama actually increased his margin in 2012 over 2008. After that though, Biden actually did worse than Hillary. Hillary actually held on to the county by a slim margin, but it somehow flipped to Trump in 2020.

One thing worth noting is that Obama doing significantly better nationwide, he really didn't improve over Kerry or Gore in Mahoning County. When you look at the partisan lean of the County relative to the nation, it's had a pretty clear rightwards trajectory for a quite a while. I think a lot of this can be attributed to ancestral D support already going away pre-Obama and Youngstown itself shrinking.

The bounce left in 2012 is interesting and happened with quite a few industrial working class rural/small-town Ohio Counties. I think it could be attributed to specific campaigning in Ohio and the auto-bailout.

Actually, one thing that's fairly remarkable was Kerry's performance in the state. It was the first time the state voted left-of-centre since 1972. Apart from landslides on either side (adding 1964 and 1920 to the list), you have to go back to 1916 to find the last time it voted more Democratic than the nation as a whole. For most years, Ohio has been stubbornly just to the right of centre.

I think Obama's result in Ohio in 2008 was disappointing at a relative level. The swing map shows a strong result for him in NWOH (interestingly adjacent to the huge swings in Michigan and Indiana). The trend map showed a serious weakness, particularly adjacent to PA and WV. Most of the of attention in that election was focused on the rightward swing in Western PA. However, Obama's 2012 performance in Ohio was quite exceptional considering. The surrounding areas all trending against him. He put up the best performance in Mahoning County since LBJ. He was also only the fourth Democrat to break 60% in Trumbull County, not quite reaching Kerry's record as best performance since LBJ.

(To note one other thing not really related to the above, but Obama lost Pike County in Southern Ohio by just a single vote. Eight years later, it posted the worst swing for Biden in the state, leaving him with just 25% of the countywide vote.)

Yeah I've thought about this a lot too, especially since Obama's performance in neighboring Indiana which is demographically was absolutely insane.

My thought is that back in the early 2000s, where you invested in campaigning mattered a lot more in swaying the final results. In both 2004 and 2008, both sides invested heavily in Ohio, so the results were less prone to wild swings and less reactive than the nation at large. In the case of Indiana, Obama invested in 2008 whereas McCain did not hence the wild swing left. If one looks at a 2004-2008 County swing map, a very clear divide can be seen along the Indiana-Ohio border despite the counties being demographically similar.

Because today media is so widespread and we have much more polarization, the value of investing in a specific state has gone down, and investing in specific demographics that could swing elections in key states has become more important. In 2020, nearly every swing can just be explained by a combination of increasing educational divide, increasing religius divide, increasing urban-rural split, demographic changes, re-alignment lag, and a decrease in racial polarization, most notably with Hispanics swinging rightwards. There are almost no parts of the Country in 2020 where you had swings that really bucked the demographics of nationwide swings.

[King of Kensington]

Actually, one thing that's fairly remarkable was Kerry's performance in the state. It was the first time the state voted left-of-centre since 1972. Apart from landslides on either side (adding 1964 and 1920 to the list), you have to go back to 1916 to find the last time it voted more Democratic than the nation as a whole. For most years, Ohio has been stubbornly just to the right of centre.

1988?

[politicallefty]

Yeah I've thought about this a lot too, especially since Obama's performance in neighboring Indiana which is demographically was absolutely insane.

My thought is that back in the early 2000s, where you invested in campaigning mattered a lot more in swaying the final results. In both 2004 and 2008, both sides invested heavily in Ohio, so the results were less prone to wild swings and less reactive than the nation at large. In the case of Indiana, Obama invested in 2008 whereas McCain did not hence the wild swing left. If one looks at a 2004-2008 County swing map, a very clear divide can be seen along the Indiana-Ohio border despite the counties being demographically similar.

Because today media is so widespread and we have much more polarization, the value of investing in a specific state has gone down, and investing in specific demographics that could swing elections in key states has become more important. In 2020, nearly every swing can just be explained by a combination of increasing educational divide, increasing religius divide, increasing urban-rural split, demographic changes, re-alignment lag, and a decrease in racial polarization, most notably with Hispanics swinging rightwards. There are almost no parts of the Country in 2020 where you had swings that really bucked the demographics of nationwide swings.

I would've normally thought Indiana was ultimately a result of the long primary campaign, but his numbers in NWOH that year would suggest other factors were in play. In the end though, it didn't make any sense for McCain to campaign there. If McCain was losing Indiana, the election was already long gone (as it ended up being). It did make for a prettier map though, tbh. I do recall the McCain campaign attempting some sort of Hail Mary in Pennsylvania towards the end, primarily focused on SWPA. I think they sent Palin there a lot to really rile the voters up with cultural issues, so really the very early beginnings of what became the Tea Party and ultimately the Trump movement.

The trend map in Ohio in 2012 largely defied the regional trends though. The only real notable and significant trend against Obama was in the swath of counties south of Mahoning and north of Athens. However, the areas that not only trended toward Obama in 2012, but also swung to him are particularly notable. I'm looking at those counties in the Columbus area and all the way down to the state's southern border. At minimum, the other county swings (not necessarily trends) are all pretty easy to explain.

Actually, one thing that's fairly remarkable was Kerry's performance in the state. It was the first time the state voted left-of-centre since 1972. Apart from landslides on either side (adding 1964 and 1920 to the list), you have to go back to 1916 to find the last time it voted more Democratic than the nation as a whole. For most years, Ohio has been stubbornly just to the right of centre.

1988?

Bush won nationwide by almost 8%, but he won Ohio by almost 11%.