Why Iowa Has Become Such a Heartbreaker for Democrats

[pstokely]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/27/us/politics/iowa-democrats-republicans.html

"Many Democrats now believe that Iowa is all but lost to the party, and that it is time to let go, a view driving a fierce debate over whether to drop the state’s presidential caucuses from their leadoff role in 2024 and beyond. Iowa is small and unrepresentative, more than 90 percent white, and the 2020 election showed that Democrats’ future is in the Sun Belt, with its racially diverse electorate and college-educated suburbanites.

Other party strategists are quick to note that Mr. Biden barely won his two Sun Belt pickup states last year, Georgia and Arizona, and that the party can’t afford to bleed more of its traditional voters while making only tenuous inroads with a new constituency.

What’s the matter with Iowa, and by extension much of the northern Midwest, for Democrats? Many officials say the party’s cataclysmic losses stem from the erosion in quality of life in rural places like Des Moines County and small cities like Burlington, which are a microcosm for a hollowing out that has led to sweeping political realignments in parts of Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Schools have closed, rural hospitals are cutting all but bare-bones care, and young people with college degrees have fled for opportunities in Des Moines or Chicago. Employers have backfilled jobs with immigrants, often after weakening unions and cutting pay."

[StClone]

1. Thanks, growing up in Iowa it is with deep sadness to say goodbye

To a once very enlightened, and livable, rural life. Either you are plowed under or buying up the little land for sale to get bigger. It not a growing place but one of despair, decay, and animal confinement.

[ananda]

32. I also grieve for the loss of Missouri to the rightwing madness.

After Truman and other good legislators, that one was hard for me.

[StClone]

35. PH.D. Friend is from Versailles, my Aunt lived in Kahoka.

Yes, Midwesterners are good people and were too trusting to realize they were being lead into the trap of mind control of fear. Iowa and Missouri are now part of the South. Red, afraid, and lost to us for, maybe, generations.

[ananda]

36. I know. But it still really hurts.

Hi back

[Buckeyeblue]

2. The Gen Xers who grew up in these small towns across America left for college and didn't come back

It's not just Iowa who is seeing the death of the small town, it's the entire country. White people inclined to vote for Democrats wanted out, so they relocated to Chicago, ATL, CA, and other bigger areas. The people left are those who are more likely to vote Republican.

I still can't explain why poor white people (poor any people really) vote Republican. Other than they feel like they have been left behind because they are white. Or Evangelical. So they get with other like minded people and descend into hatred.

[speak easy]

3. "why poor white people vote Republican"

Because they resent the opportunities and the life that drew friends, family and young people away.

[Aviation Pro]

4. The poor dears

They only have themselves to blame.

But they never will.

[harumph]

19. A poignant observation.

It stopped me in my tracks.

[USAFRetired_Liberal]

7. This is the same stuff the MSM says

I still can't explain why poor white people (poor any people really) vote Republican. Other than they feel like they have been left behind because they are white.

How about the obvious and main reason....Racism and thinking that they are better than the others.

[OldBaldy1701E]

11. You got it Flight! (n/t)

[uponit7771]

15. +1, right ?! Cause what does the kGQP stand for but a symbol of how it "was" ...

... in America including a social caste system that is anti American on its face.

[Buckeyeblue]

23. It is racism for sure. But it's more than that

They resent educated people, of all colors. They use their religion to justify their condemnation of educated people.

I would argue that their resentment of the types of people who tend to vote Democratic is more of a motivator than their racism.

At least that's the impression I get. And I'm around these types of people more than i care to be

[PortTack]

25. IA is a very racist state...southern IL as well. Thank god IL has Chicago

[msfiddlestix]

26. The story of American Farmers and their offspring go off the big cities for economic

reasons, mixed with educational reasons, and get subsumed in the socio-economic culture. It's been going on since forever. Which is partly why we need to make changes to our electoral system, Senate representation etc.

People need to be represented, not soil.

[roamer65]

29. Yes, a more parliamentary system.

[msfiddlestix]

30. I think so. But boy howdy, we're probably a very long ways to go to get there.

What with all of the authoritarian worshipers that have sprung up like poison mushrooms, probably with Putin's help.

[roamer65]

34. No probably.

With that fucker Putin’s help.


I’d like to see that bastard six feet under.

...and

[Buckeyeblue]

33. I agree with you

Our representative democracy is barely a democracy. And yet it's being propped up by constitution that makes change virtually impossible.

[joetheman]

5. Know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em.

Trumpism is just making it worse.

[Hortensis]

6. My thought is that we have a duty to represent the people of every state to our best.

But for sure a lot of us believe Iowa should not lead off our primaries.

IA is a very unrepresentative small state, not just overwhelmingly white but relatively limited in other kinds of diversity, including intellectual and cultural diversity. Besides being reliably conservative, its comparatively homogenous blocs on both right and left are easier to manipulate than more diverse and larger populations.

Just look at how dramatically the IA primary results skewed away from the national pattern in 2020. A socialist, Bernie Sanders, won in IA, and yet in every other state no candidate broke out of the far-behind second tier to challenge the only Democrat who was the top tier of 1, always in reality far ahead, beginning to end.

Which brings us to the Repub-electing MSM and what they did with the IA anomaly. They used it to try to take out Biden at the start. Whenever these anomalies occur, they will weaponize them against our most electable candidates, because that's their job in national elections. In every state, but for a number of reasons, including its semi-open primary and unresolved caucuses, IA's stacked for all kinds of mischief by various actors and presents them with a particularly valuable opportunity.

[dsc]

12. Buttigieg won the caucuses by the same count that was used

until a gay guy won and we decided to change the rules. Thanks to Iowa's bungling Pete was robbed of his victory.

[uponit7771]

16. +1,

[Hortensis]

21. Those "unresolved" caucus issues -- huge understatement.

Buttigieg did do impressively well in IA, as your post indicates, well ahead of our stratospheric frontrunner, who placed fourth. At least Mayor Pete got some big press coverage out of it for the future.

[Eid Ma Clack Shaw]

8. The way I see it, Iowa is, historically, a pretty red state

that happened to dabble with Democrats between 1988 and 2012. Even then, it went the way of one of the two Republicans to win the popular vote in that time (the Bushes). If I’m a Democratic strategist, in terms of Presidential elections, I’m looking at consolidating in the states won last time out and at North Carolina as the most likely pickup.

[Loubee]

9. These stories always describe the decline in quality of life, but

never explain why so many voters irrationally blame Democrats, even though it's obvious that GOP retrograde policies have "hollowed out" the economy.

[uponit7771]

17. +1, because to ask the question would be to present the people left in these towns as flat ...

... earthers or short bussers in their thinking.

They would say crap like trickle down works or America isn't a racist country or shit that doesn't make sense on its face.

[Hortensis]

24. Absolutely. We're radical liberals destroying

the nation. Those not hopelessly mislead and turned off by the RW assassination machine's systematic barrage get targeted with deceits that we're corrupt capitalists in bed with the Republicans.

Like the nation as a whole, Iowa's decline results from the deliberate destruction of the electorate's ability to make informed choices. So tragic because we can be doing so incredibly much better. We have everything we need except undeceived, even slightly informed voters.

[maxsolomon]

31. It's not Dems that sent small-town manufacturing to China.

It's the owners of those businesses.

At least in the PNW, you can point at Enviro Dems for the decline of rural employment. The end of the wholesale rape of national forest old-growth timberlands, the loss of felling jobs, & the ensuing closure of mills is laid at the feet of urban libtards, and has fueled resentment and paranoia throughout rural WA & OR. Reactionary politics is the natural outcome.

Add in the Opiate Crisis, and Rural America is at the bottom of a deep hole.

[dem4decades]

10. There's no reason to reward Iowa with the first say in the Democratic presidential campaign.

Let it go 30th or later, that's what it deserves.

[jaxexpat]

13. What's the problem that changed midwestern state's penchant to vote Democratic?

"Employers have backfilled jobs with immigrants, often after weakening unions and cutting pay." That's a pretty good start on an explanation. It may be worth noting that the jobs which are taken over by immigrants are almost always lower quality with a lower wage. But those jobs didn't exist in such quantity back in the old, pre-Reagan days, the "true blue midwestern era". Coincidental to these historical, midwestern, demographic changes is the demise of the traditional small family farm. It used to be touted as the backbone of American independence and strength. After all, it was the sons of those agricultural pioneers who fought the Nazis and the Japanese empire in US uniforms. It was true for most GI's of that era.

The 80's saw those same farms sold at the courthouse steps in bankruptcy proceedings. They are now owned by corporations. The barns, and corrals and homes dozed to make more crop land. The cattle raised in vast concentration feed lots. Same for hogs and chickens. Where there were once families working the soil of their own homesteaded properties there are now employees with latino sir names managed by the soil-addicted great grandchildren of those pioneers. Few remain in agriculture and those who do are actually mid-level corporate management types with deadlines, schedules and quotas, occasionally found in work boots. The remainder having moved into the cities, melted into the mass of heritage bereft Americana.

So who's left to vote there? Or anywhere else in the depopulating, flyover, heart of the country? Low wage people and those who struggle to live in communities whose economy relies on what little commerce can be provided by those low wages. Every body not employed by multi-national agribusiness corporations will eventually move away for lack of interest.

The current remaining citizenry bought into Reagan's "blame the poor and the Democrats" for the country's sorry situation long ago. The guys who lost their farms to Reaganomics' OTHER platform (sell America to international corporations for pennies on the dollar) blamed the welfare state for their problems even as the auctioneers' gavel sealed their fates. Sorry, Democrats need not apply.

[MontanaFarmer]

18. A pretty good summation of the family farm.

In my opinion, the largest driver of the decline in a just, ecologically sound, somewhat collectivist agricultural lifestyle, replaced by "the industry," is corporate consolidation and monopolization. They new the right policy levers to pull to make inputs and the almighty dollar the most important thing, and they've done it. The soil in this country was degraded long before this policy shift, but instead of rebuilding it based on science, they pushed synthetic bandaids that oh by the way they control, driving up input costs, yields, and driving down net farm income. Couple that with a subsidy structure that is basically taxpayers enabling multinational corporations continued access to cheap commodities, and here we are. There are some small movements to change policy in the other direction, but i just can't think we'll ever see a revitalization of the land and corresponding communities on any sort of meaningful scale. Thanks for your post, very thoughtful and i enjoyed reading it.

[rockfordfile]

14. No Iowa must continue to be fought for

[crickets]

27. I agree. Not to pour too many resources into a sure loss,

but I'm a big '50 states strategy' supporter. Always spend at least some time and attention on each state, because you never know how many Dems stay home due to apathy and lack of candidate choices. This from a GA voter who was infinitely frustrated by the lack of attention here for so many years. GA might have turned blue, and more solidly so, a little earlier with a little more time and effort from the DNC.

[Peppertoo]

20. Obama won Iowa in 2008 Gore narrowly won it in 2000

It has gotten redder.

[BumRushDaShow]

22. Iowa, back when Obama won it in 2008

had that eastern part of the state almost like a far-flung suburb of Chicago and they were familiar with him and connected with IL's suburban Chicago's populace as well. The big booster was Tom Harkin, who was a Senate stalwart from Iowa and his 2015 retirement really left a hole in the Democratic power structure there, filled by a loon pig-castrator.

There is another state over yonder that Obama won in 2008 and that was Indiana. You had the Bayh family in that state - Birch as Senator for almost 20 years starting in the '60s and then Evan coming right behind as Governor and then taking his father's old Senate seat.

When Evan Bayh decided not to run during that teabagger-infested 2010 election, which was also unfortunately when many Democrats were running away from Obama due to the RW backlash against the ACA, that pretty much sealed the fate (at least back then) for Democrats in IN. Evan does have twin 25-year old sons however (both enlistees in the miltary) so there are some next-gen potentials there if they ever choose to take up the mantle of politics.

I would hope that with whatever Biden has planned for the infrastructure bill, we can recoup some of these states that are marginal but are do-able (including MO so we can get rid of the insurrectionist leader Hawley).

There is this at the end of that expose that touches on this -

(snip)

Mr. Courtney said the voters he knew didn’t care much about cultural issues that Democrats elsewhere dwell on, like gun control and immigration. “All they really want to know is where can they get a good job that pays the most money so that they can take care of their family, and we’re not touching on that,” he said.

He has cautious hopes for Mr. Biden’s infrastructure proposal.

“If we can put people to work making good money building that stuff, it could be like the W.P.A. back in the day,” said Mr. Courtney, whose parents worshiped Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal.

Even Mr. Davis, the G.O.P. chair, conceded that a robust infrastructure plan that brought jobs to Burlington would make it harder for Republicans to continue their winning streak. “It probably will be tough in four years if things are good,” he said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/27/us/politics/iowa-democrats-republicans.html

^^^emphasis mine

I would also hope that both states are cultivating some politicos at the state and local levels who could be ready to run for higher offices.

[roamer65]

28. I can see it in rural Michigan.

Not a lot of the 18-35 year olds are left there. They leave for Grand Rapids, Metro Detroit or out of state like Chicago and don’t come back.

I was one of them. I go there now to do elder care and I HATE it there.

[Brother Mythos]

37. Iowa is not even close to being a microcosm of the USA. Democrats should have ...

pulled our first presidential primary out of there a long time ago. Starting in Iowa is a waste of time and resources that could be better spent is a state we can win.

[peppertree]

38. 'Cause the Repugs cheat?

Black-box voting makes it so easy.

[hunter]

39. "Brain Drain" is a very real thing in the U.S.A.

They Walk Away from Omelas.