What happened to Iowa?
I grew up in Madison, less than 100 miles from northeastern Iowa. So while I’ve never set foot in the state, I feel I have a pretty good idea what it’s culture is like. I recall the 1988 election, when Iowa was one of only two states that Dukakis won by double digits. It’s about as deep blue a state as one can imagine.
Unfortunately, I actually don’t know anything about Iowa. The Iowa of 1988 is long gone. Now it’s strong Trump country—Trump did better there than in Texas. And BTW, Dukakis was almost 180 degrees removed from Trump—he was a bloodless neoliberal technocrat. Biden is far more Trump-like that Dukakis. And yet Iowa voters loved Dukakis. He did better there than in his home state of Massachusetts.
I thought of all this when reading a National Review headline:
Iowa Legislature Passes Bill Banning Abortion after Six Weeks
What the hell happened to Iowa? It doesn’t have a big problem with crime or racial tensions. It hasn’t suffered much deindustrialization. It benefits hugely from international trade. And yet it’s become extremely right wing.
It’s weird when you move away from a place for several decades. You still believe that you understand the place from when you lived in the area. But you really don’t. Unless you live somewhere, you cannot understand it. And maybe it’s impossible to truly understand a place even if you do live there.
PS. Iowa remained bluer than average until 2016, when it suddenly shifted dramatically red. Both times, Obama did better in Iowa than nationwide. In just one election cycle Iowa goes from bluer than most states to redder than Texas.
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12. July 2023 at 11:06
I don’t know anything about Iowa and have never set foot there. Even if Iowa benefits greatly from international trade and hasn’t deindustrialized like the Rust Belt, I wonder if they feel marginalized culturally, which leads them to identify more with Trumpian MAGA politics.
12. July 2023 at 11:38
Maybe the young liberal people moved to other states?
12. July 2023 at 11:46
Yes, but almost this entire change happened between 2012 and 2016. What happened during those four year? Anger at Obama? But Iowa voted to re-elect Obama.
12. July 2023 at 12:11
Trump made the election about race (and gender). Romney and McCain refused to do that even when directly prompted. Iowa is very, very white.
12. July 2023 at 12:59
Kindred, Race is typically a less important issue in white states like Vermont and Oregon as compared to states with large black populations like Alabama and South Carolina.
12. July 2023 at 13:35
I can’t speak for a state as a whole, but I made a lot of trips in Iowa in those years for work and nearly every left-of-center person I met there talked about moving East — and perhaps half a dozen of them did, including the two our customer’s best technicians — folks I have to assume were being paid well over the median for their human capital.
I think there was definitely a cultural shift in there, the sort that made everyone feel marginal and threatened and willing to Tiebout. A sightly more zero sum world-view blew in with the winter storms?
12. July 2023 at 13:53
There is nothing “hard right” about allowing state legislators to establish laws that reflect the beliefs of those living there. That’s a classical liberal principle.
And there is nothing “hard right” or “radical” or “extreme” about concluding that life begins at quickening. In fact, this was the old classical liberal position.
Indeed, the radical and extreme position are those that want the Federal government to centralize abortion laws for everyone else, despite the decentralized Republic on which America was founded, and who propose no restrictions at all — even permitting post birth abortion, which we once called infanticide.
Quickening is a derivation of the common law. It’s common sense proposal that compromises between two hard line views. The first view: a gross, sick, twisted view that life begins whenever I feel like it (radical left), and the more religious hard liners who believe that god commanded that the right to life begin at conception (religious view).
It’s a very reasonable piece of legislation.
12. July 2023 at 14:18
LOL. The left doesn’t compromise, Sara. They vote in unison.
They are very similar to the collective Borg. I mean, these are sickos who punch people at abortion clinics for praying outside. They go to Supreme Court justices homes and threaten them. They burn down buildings and loot stores when they don’t get their way. They call for “packing the courts with judges that obey them” when the legislation they hoped to pass was deemed unconstitutional. They proposed dismantling the electoral college in 2016 because their preferred candidate didn’t win the election.
Basically, they want abortion up until birth around the nation, and if you don’t agree it means you are “extreme” or a “terrorist”
In my view, two months is a lot of time to get an abortion. If you wait until the eight month to make a decision, then you are a mentally sick person. Getting cold feet is not an excuse to kill a fully grown, conscious fetus.
And from my understanding that bill includes clauses which allow abortions after six weeks: for example, if the person was unaware of the pregnancy or unable to do so because of other circumstances.
CNN actually ran a piece a few days ago lamenting that 10,000 more people were born in Texas since the legislation passed, so I think we can deduce their true agenda here: depopulation.
12. July 2023 at 17:02
Lot of wife’s family lives in Iowa and we go to family reunion every other year. I think the race and religion issue were big. The white population in Iowa is, I think, less well educated than in Vermont so they were more easily scared even if there weren’t many blacks in Iowa. The culture wars played big with the religious folks. Just think of Iowa as being like rural Illinois or Minnesota.
“In my view, two months is a lot of time to get an abortion. If you wait until the eight month to make a decision, then you are a mentally sick person.”
That’s why it doesnt happen, only in made up horror stories. No one is aborting normal, healthy 8 month pregnancies. The physiologic trespass is the same as a normal delivery.
Steve
12. July 2023 at 17:59
People miss a lot when they focus on percentages and ignore the actual numbers, which tell a story of their own. In Iowa, while Trump won 70k more votes than Romney, Clinton won’t 170k fewer than Obama. This is the case throughout the upper Midwest. The democratic loss vastly exceeds the Republican gains. In Wisconsin I believe Trump actually won fewer votes than Romney, but Clinton won fewer still.
The rightward turn of the Midwest is not as much a story of conversion as most people think. Much of it is depressed turnout and lack of enthusiasm among democratic demographics. Migration also probably plays a big role. Democratic urban stronghold have collapsed in population (I also do t know much about Iowa so I don’t know how much of a rust belt state it is). Younger voters have been stressful moving southward for a long time. The leftward turn going on in Virginia, NC, and Texas is partly driven by migrants leaving erstwhile northern swing states.
12. July 2023 at 18:04
Well that’s what I get for typing on my phone. Disregard word ‘stressful’ in above comment.
12. July 2023 at 18:16
I don’t know anything about Iowa either, but I wonder: have their views actually changed? Or is it just that the people who live states with big cities have shifted left politically, and Iowans view their vote for Trump as a vote against this recent shift?
12. July 2023 at 18:46
A few comments. The shift occurred between 2012 and 2016, too quick for it to reflect population movements. Lots of Obama–>Trump voters in Iowa.
Race was probably not a big factor. Unlike places like Alabama, whites in Iowa supported Obama.
12. July 2023 at 22:32
I spent the summer of 1996 in Iowa. I remember that the people were pleasant and the food was good. It did not seem like a simmering pot of resentment and grievance. I can only offer the theory that people there were bored by politics until Trump came along. Sure, they’ve always had those stupid caucuses, but that’s a brief party that only happens every four years. Trump garnered support because he was exotic and a bundle of outlandish contradictions. A buffoon from New York with gleaming mansions and a series of hot wives. He said crazy things and held rallies that were far more entertaining than any other candidate. He told lies with such conviction and charisma. For many people in the state, especially in rural areas, he promised a more exciting country, and a restoration of greatness–if the details were never completely worked out didn’t matter.
13. July 2023 at 13:32
The biggest factor in my mind lately when it comes to questions like this is a loss of confidence in the government and institutions, coupled with Trump representing an alternative that many voters never imagined they’d get.
I think that’s one reason why Trump has a cult following. Voters don’t trust that anyone else has such crude views on a variety of issues, or is an outsider, as Trump has always been in some ways. While Trump certainly has always been a member of the elite in a sense, he was never accepted in many polite circles.
Wrong track numbers remain permanently high in polls as a result of this general loss of confidence in government and institutions, and nihilism has replaced hope in many voters.
13. July 2023 at 16:23
>The white population in Iowa is, I think, less well educated than in Vermont so they were more easily scared even if there weren’t many blacks in Iowa.
Educated whites get very easily scared of blacks when it comes to what neighborhood to move to or what school to send their kid to.
>I can only offer the theory that people there were bored by politics until Trump came along. Sure, they’ve always had those stupid caucuses, but that’s a brief party that only happens every four years. Trump garnered support because he was exotic and a bundle of outlandish contradictions. A buffoon from New York with gleaming mansions and a series of hot wives. He said crazy things and held rallies that were far more entertaining than any other candidate. He told lies with such conviction and charisma. For many people in the state, especially in rural areas, he promised a more exciting country, and a restoration of greatness–if the details were never completely worked out didn’t matter.
Trump actually lost the 2016 Iowa caucus. He lost in neighboring Wisconsin too. It was probably more a vote against Clinton than for Trump. Put simply, people don’t want to vote for someone who looks down on them and sees their existence as a social problem. Dems find it easy to understand this when it comes to blacks, browns, and followers of religions other than Christianity.
13. July 2023 at 21:54
Are Iowans dumber than Vermonters? This links suggests not much difference:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2022/10/24/naep-report-card-test-scores-reading-math/10552407002/
I don’t trust it, but I’m skeptical there’s much difference between the two states.
14. July 2023 at 06:02
Sumner — How do those crazy, horrible people who think deliberately killing unborn babies is wrong dare to existh?
Brilliant, insightful analysis.
14. July 2023 at 13:13
>Sumner — How do those crazy, horrible people who think deliberately killing unborn babies is wrong dare to existh?
Anti-abortion is the viewpoint of a very loud minority of self-righteous people. It lost in the referendums in Kansas and Montana and would probably lose in Iowa if the voters actually got a say.
A fetus is not a 7 year old. Full stop.
14. July 2023 at 14:32
Anon, Yes, and I recall that it lost by a huge margin in Kansas, which is a quite conservative state.
14. July 2023 at 19:43
Stan Greer,
Comments like yours, which typically come from extremist religious fundamentalists, are, if anything, just accelerting the demise of evangelical Christianity and even religion in general.
15. July 2023 at 05:45
>Basically, they want abortion up until birth around the nation, and if you don’t agree it means you are “extreme” or a “terrorist”
And pro-lifers want all abortion illegal throughout the nation. They only bring up late term abortion as a bait-and-switch.
>In my view, two months is a lot of time to get an abortion. If you wait until the eight month to make a decision, then you are a mentally sick person.
Maybe such people shouldn’t be passing down their genes.
>CNN actually ran a piece a few days ago lamenting that 10,000 more people were born in Texas since the legislation passed, so I think we can deduce their true agenda here: depopulation.
Who were those 10,000 people born to? I think we can deduce your true agenda here: dysgenics. I hope the taxpayers of Texas like paying for more welfare.
15. July 2023 at 16:29
I don’t know Iowa either… but I don’t understand why it’s right wing to ban terminating the life of one’s offspring. It’s one of the most pressing human rights issues in America.
I’ll admit, it’s my least centrist or libertarian position from the POV of everyone else. I am open to leaving it legal for the sake of freedom… but until every drug is legalized and the government backed off every tell you what to do position it imposes… I won’t get it.
I just don’t see how ending the development of one’s offspring is acceptable. This ~1 million lives a year we are talking about. How does one argue for animal rights (vegans even more so b/c it’s so correlated with the pro choice type) or drug prohibition and then support ending the development of their own babies.
It is an odd position all around.
15. July 2023 at 21:42
Also it is increasingly becoming the case that the real divide in people globally is urban vs rural. A person living in Tokyo or Delhi has more in common with someone living in NYC or San Francisco than does someone in rural Iowa (or any other state for that matter). I am not exactly sure when that became more true than less true 2012 is as good of a date as any… although it probably started occurring circa 1990.
15. July 2023 at 22:07
One more comment on the Obama -> Trump swing. Obama excited young people to vote. Clinton did not. We saw it happen again in 2020 and 2022. Young people will probably turnout in 2024 of abortion. They overwhelmingly think it should be legal and it’s an issue that causes people to vote (see Kansas).
The only other issue that would get them out is legalizing marijuana federally. I honestly don’t understand why a Biden or any candidate for that matter doesn’t come out and say they would legalize marijuana federally across the nation and remove it from all background checks. That issue alone would hand 2024 to whoever promised to do so.
The dems could ride abortion and marijuana legalization nationally to an easy victory in 2024.
23. July 2023 at 15:39
[…] a recent post, I said the following about Iowa’s sudden shift to the political […]
24. July 2023 at 09:37
Seems to me the common thread in appealing to Iowans and other parts of the midwest is to preach the evils of free trade:
– Dukakis’s campaign was having trouble in places like Iowa until he was forced to take a loud, populist turn on trade: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1988/10/09/dukakis-tough-trade-stance-moves-him-far-from-gop-line/53a1a5e8-de24-48fb-be08-b9216b8bcd6b/
– In 1992 Perot got 25% of votes in many of those Iowa counties that later flipped from Obama to Trump.
– Hate NAFTA? Are you going to vote for Obama or Romney? Clinton or Trump?
– How does Sherrod Brown keep winning in Ohio and Joe Manchin in West Virginia? So many voters vote on their anti-trade stances over other issues.
– I’m not sure that Biden can out-anti-free-trade Trump, but if, somehow, he faces another Republican I’d bet a number of the Obama-to-Trump counties swing back to Biden.
While we place significant blame on monetary policy for the Great Recession and for the slow recovery afterward and for recent high inflation, the first instinct of these voters is and long has been to blame those and many other things on free trade, particularly NAFTA. High inflation? NAFTA’s fault. Low wages? NAFTA’s fault. Tight labor market? NAFTA’s fault.
24. July 2023 at 11:48
Yes Chris, the average voter is oblivious to the benefits of trade. And yet they go to work making widgets and go home and go to the grocery store for their food. They seemingly cannot see how their everyday activities prove the immense benefits of specialization and trade. Even pundits and economists often miss the trade offs between the current account and the capital account.
24. July 2023 at 12:35
Fox Butterfield: “It doesn’t have a big problem with crime or racial tensions. It hasn’t suffered much deindustrialization. It benefits hugely from international trade. And yet it’s become extremely right wing.”
Dopler: “Trump actually lost the 2016 Iowa caucus. He lost in neighboring Wisconsin too. It was probably more a vote against Clinton than for Trump.”
Very likely true.
Regarding the Obama -> Trump swing – Obama pulled the Democrats to a very leftward position. Iowa didn’t move much.
As for abortion, the states have tried to pass very differnt laws. Abortion polls over 50% until you get to about 12 weeks or so. After that it gets to be quite unpopular. You can’t reason from just what happens from an ‘abortion law’. Details matter.