Why Iowa Turned So Red When Nearby States Went Blue

[dalton99a]

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/08/us/politics/iowa-republicans-red.html
https://archive.ph/pgADw

Why Iowa Turned So Red When Nearby States Went Blue
Over the past 15 years, the Upper Midwest has seen a remarkable state-by-state sorting of voters along partisan lines.
By Jonathan Weisman
Jan. 8, 2024 Updated 3:19 p.m. ET

With the Iowa caucuses six days away, politicians will be crisscrossing the state, blowing through small-town Pizza Ranches, filling high school gyms, and flipping pancakes at church breakfasts.

What Iowans will not be seeing are Democrats. President Biden spoke Friday in Pennsylvania, and he and Vice President Kamala Harris both were in South Carolina over the weekend and on Monday. But Iowa, a state that once sizzled with bipartisan politics, launched Barack Obama to the presidency in 2008 and seesawed between Republican and Democratic governors, has largely been ceded to the G.O.P. as part of a remarkable sorting of voters in the Upper Midwest.

There is no single reason that over the past 15 years the Upper Midwest saw Iowa turn into a beacon of Donald J. Trump’s populism, North and South Dakota shed storied histories of prairie populism for a conservatism that reflected the national G.O.P., and Illinois and Minnesota move dramatically leftward. (Sandwiched in between, Wisconsin found an uncomfortable parity between its conservative rural counties and its more industrial and academic centers in Milwaukee and Madison.)

No state in the nation swung as heavily Republican between 2012 and 2020 as Iowa, which went from a six-percentage-point victory for Barack Obama to an eight-point win for Mr. Trump in the last presidential election.

....

[underpants]

1. Idiots Out Walking Around

As told to me by a guy from IOWA in the Army

[yardwork]

9. That's perfect.

[kairos12]

22. LOL! Filing this.

[dsc]

2. Iowa was Dukakis' best state in 1988

as hard as that is to believe now.

[Rstrstx]

18. I thought it was West Virginia

Looking it up on Wikipedia it was actually Rhode Island

[LiberalFighter]

3. Mostly in the lower 16% IQ range???

[Aristus]

4. A very liberal friend of mine from PA School was ebullient in 2008 over her home state of Iowa

going for Barack Obama. When I expressed my surprise that a rural Midwestern State would go for the Democratic candidate, she declared flatly: "We're liberal in Iowa!"

She must not be very happy right now.

[dalton99a]

6. +1. Iowa was the third U.S. state to legalize same-sex marriage

[Aristus]

7. That was one of the issues we discussed. I remember being surprised that Iowa did that before

California. She was very proud of her state. I can only imagine what she must be feeling about Iowa right now.

[SharonClark]

11. Iowa Supreme Court did that,

not the general voters.

[nevergiveup]

5. I fear we are also in trouble in Wisconsin.

Trump carried it in 2016 and Biden only carried it by 20,000 in 2020. Obama did remarkably well in northern Wisconsin rural counties. Those counties are now mostly lost.

[Jimbo S]

25. "The Politics of Resentment"

[maxrandb]

8. Wisconsin didn't "find an uncomfortable parity"

It was gerrymandered to frickin unrecognizable wingnuttery.

[GoCubsGo]

19. And, we can thank the Koch Brothers and othes for that.

They used Wisconsin as their testing grounds.

[moondust]

10. Ballooning farm bailouts.

~
Direct farm aid has climbed each year of Trump’s presidency, from $11.5 billion in 2017 to more than $32 billion this year — an all-time high, with potentially far more funding still to come in 2020, amounting to about two-thirds of the cost of the entire Department of Housing and Urban Development and more than the Agriculture Department’s $24 billion discretionary budget, according to a POLITICO analysis. But lawmakers have taken a largely hands-off approach, letting the department decide who gets the money and how much.
~
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/14/donald-trump-coronavirus-farmer-bailouts-359932

_______________________________

~
...Trump imposed tariffs on products coming from China, a tax paid largely by American consumers. ...This tax was then redistributed to farmers who had been targeted by reciprocal tariffs from China.
~
Trump’s farmer bailout gave $21 billion to red counties and $2.1 billion to blue ones

The bribes weren't enough to deliver Election 2020 for him but no doubt they solidified his support in some rural areas along with his white male supremacy vision at a time of growing demographic changes.

[NameAlreadyTaken]

26. And yet free lunches for hungry kids? In a farming state? Sorry, no can do.

[SharonClark]

12. Blame it on right wing talk radio and scary

evangelicals.

[Initech]

13. And Fox News 24 hours a day.

[Kid Berwyn]

21. Corporate McPravda

Get people to believe they have an enemy. In this case, Democrats.

Repeat for 40 years non-stop for added affect.

[Sky Jewels]

28. Other states have right wing talk radio

but, yeah, Iowa is scarily religious, and that's one of the main problems.

[pansypoo53219]

14. they go to church, + he's the golden calf.

[MyNameIsJonas]

15. Iowa is a far more rural state than those surrounding it.

They also don't have a major city where Democrats run up massive margins to make up for the more rural areas.

Wisconsin has Milwaukee.

Michigan has Detroit.

Illinois has Chicago.

Des Moines just isn't as large.

[Silent3]

16. True, but it was pretty much just as rural when Obama won the state...

...so something else is clearly going on.

[MyNameIsJonas]

20. What Iowa has seen is not much different than those other states.

The difference is that they don't have an urban center to balance it out.

From 2012 to 2016, Republicans made significant gains in more rural, white areas across the board - from Ohio to Pennsylvania.

The difference between Pennsylvania or Michigan and Iowa, tho is that Iowa just does not have the urban center to compensate for the larger rural shift.

In 2012, Democrats won 42% of small cities/rural areas nationwide.

In 2016, they won 34% nationwide.

That shift is going to be felt in a more rural state like Iowa as opposed to, say, Michigan with its urban areas.

[uponit7771]

17. MAGA has a more established amplification system in Iowa rural areas, it's that simple

[maxsolomon]

23. Propaganda works. Generations raised on Fox & Hate Radio.

Generations of the best & brightest fleeing the state as soon as their degrees are complete.

I met multiple intelligent, funny, liberal Iowans when I fled SW Ohio for Seattle in the 90s.

[Jimbo S]

24. Culture wars?

"North and South Dakota shed storied histories of prairie populism for a conservatism that reflected the national G.O.P."

[Freethinker65]

27. Trump Tower Des Moines, Trump Cedar Rapids Golf Resort. Sioux City Ski Resort and Spa.

Iowa is where the GOP party goes to invest and vacation and hang out with like minded people.

If Iowans believe it at election time, that's all that matters.

[Jilly_in_VA]

29. Stupid paywall

Not that I would pay to read the NYT anyway.

[Thunderbeast]

30. Democrats must stop insulting rural Americans

Jon Tester's message in Montana has been successful.

Farmers need healthcare.

Ranchers need a strong predictable economy.

Tractor dealers need infrastructure to support their enterprises.

Everyone (rural and urban) needs quality, affordable education, clean air and water, and liberty and justice (protection of rights) for every citizen.

[Coventina]

31. Ranchers need to stop thinking public lands belong to them.

And ruining it with their cows.

And yes, I am a vegetarian.