How Hillary Lost a Key Democratic Outpost in the Midwest

Iowa has been a near-lock for the Democrats in presidential elections for more than a generation, but the party’s current nominee is running into massive headwinds of discontent.

Hillary Clinton has not topped Republican Donald Trump in a public poll for the duration of September and currently trails the GOP nominee by 4.8 percentage points, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average. Of the states that President Obama carried in 2012, it is among the most likely to turn red on Election Day.

 “Hillary Clinton has been unable to capture the Obama magic in Iowa.”

“This is the first state Obama won in 2008 and the last state he campaigned in, in 2012,” said Tim Albrecht, a pollster and consultant who advises the state Republican Party. “Hillary Clinton has been unable to capture the Obama magic in Iowa.”

Iowa long has had a progressive streak that sets it part from other farm states in the Midwest, fueled by blue-collar workers in the eastern part of the state. That has tilted its politics left in presidential elections. Even during George H.W. Bush’s landslide victory in 1988, it was one of just 10 states that backed Democrat Michael Dukakis. And the margin was not close.

Since then, Republicans have managed to carry Iowa once in a presidential race, and even then only by the slimmest of margins — George W. Bush beat John Kerry by about 10,000 votes in 2004.

But political observers said a combination of demographics and discontent with the direction of the country have made Iowa a juicy target for Trump.

Doug Gross, who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2002 and later served as chief of staff to Republican Gov. Terry Branstad, said Iowa has more of the voters that Trump does best with — whites and working-class voters without college degrees.

[lz_table title=”Iowa Voting History” source=””]
|Year,Democrat,Republican
1988,54.7%,44.5%
1992,43.5%,37.3%
1996,50.3%,39.9%
2000,48.5%,48.2%
2004,49.3%,49.9%
2008,53.9%,44.4%
2012,52%,46.2%
[/lz_table]

“If you put those things together, it’s a good state, demographically,” he said.

Gross said Iowa has been trending Republican in recent years, even without Trump. Branstad is now the longest-serving governor in the U.S. history, and Republicans control the Iowa House of Representatives, as well as both U.S. Senate seats.

“What makes Trump unique is the places where Democrats are traditionally the strongest … also happen to be places in the state with high numbers of non-college-educated voters,” he said. “He has a stronger-than-normal draw for a Republican.”

[lz_table title=”Iowa Demographics” source=”Census Bureau”]Demographic,Iowa,Nation
|
Population,3.1M,321.4M
White share,91.8%,77.1%
Foreign-born,4.7%,13.1%
Median income,$52 716,$53 482
College degree,26.5%,29.3%
[/lz_table]

Experts also agree that Iowa’s six electoral votes are more important to Trump than Clinton. The former secretary of state has plenty of other options to accumulate 270 electoral votes nationwide. If Trump can not pull off victories in Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania, he will have to cobble together a large number of smaller states to make up the loss of one of those larger states.

“There are relatively few paths to 270 votes for Trump,” said Cary Covington, a political science professor at the University of Iowa. “He needs a number of states to fall in line, and Iowa is one of those.”

Although Iowa has leaned left in presidential elections, it is not as if the Republicans have not been competitive, Covington said. He said the state has always a strong base of social conservatives, and for those voters, the prospect of Clinton nominating Supreme Court justice overwhelms whatever doubts they may have about Trump.

“Voters who initially were standoffish about voting for Trump are accommodating themselves to that option because Hillary Clinton is such a polarizing and negative figure in those communities,” he said.

[lz_related_box id=”214998″]

Albrecht said there are signs of trouble in the Democratic turnout operation. With early voting starting Thursday, he said, the party is behind the pace of 2012. He said the number of absentee ballots requested by Democrats is running roughly half of the number at this time four years ago.

Albrecht said Trump also is benefiting from a unified party. He said the party quickly closed ranks behind him after he sewed up the nomination, even though voters picked Sen. Ted Cruz in the Iowa caucuses in February. Trump has the full support of rank-and-file Republicans, as well as the party’s elected officials.

“It’s not like that in every state,” Albrecht said. “We don’t have the daily drip of negative stories here. The never-Trump movement never got a foothold here.”

Gross expressed confidence in a Trump victory, but he added that he does not expect a blowout.

“I think it will be close, but he has the edge in Iowa,” he said.