"What is amazing to see in Middle-America places, and strongly seen in Iowa, is entire areas of Iowa that had been in the vicinity of 50-50 or 60-40 R-D turning 75-25 or higher. Even as high locally as 85-15 R-D, an seldom-precedented collapse in a stable major party's vote. In such places, something up to one-third of normal D-voters in…
"What is amazing to see in Middle-America places, and strongly seen in Iowa, is entire areas of Iowa that had been in the vicinity of 50-50 or 60-40 R-D turning 75-25 or higher. Even as high locally as 85-15 R-D, an seldom-precedented collapse in a stable major party's vote. In such places, something up to one-third of normal D-voters in Iowa defected to Trump, with those who leaned to being R-leaning Nonvoters also motivated to turn out, and the result: Huge local supermajorities for Trump."
Yes, good analysis here. From what I could see -- and which you've noted with your example of Dubuque -- is that Iowa used to have a stronger East/West split, with eastern Iowa, especially in the mini-rust-belt cities of Dubuque and Waterloo, holding to a more Wisconsin-like devotion to the Democrats. That has been shifting.
And the supermajorities in western Iowa are interesting, too. The 85-15 gap you mention is likely Sioux County, where I was raised. It's always been R territory, but in recent years it's just a wipeout. Sioux County, as was discussed at length years back on Steve's other site, is an outlier in that it's a prosperous and growing rural area. Democrats really don't have much to offer to Sioux County voters, who seem to have finally grasped that they are people the Woke Establishment despises the most: rural, very heavily of northern-European (Dutch) extraction, Christian, self-reliant, prosperous -- they are the poster-demons of Wokeness.
"What is amazing to see in Middle-America places, and strongly seen in Iowa, is entire areas of Iowa that had been in the vicinity of 50-50 or 60-40 R-D turning 75-25 or higher. Even as high locally as 85-15 R-D, an seldom-precedented collapse in a stable major party's vote. In such places, something up to one-third of normal D-voters in Iowa defected to Trump, with those who leaned to being R-leaning Nonvoters also motivated to turn out, and the result: Huge local supermajorities for Trump."
Yes, good analysis here. From what I could see -- and which you've noted with your example of Dubuque -- is that Iowa used to have a stronger East/West split, with eastern Iowa, especially in the mini-rust-belt cities of Dubuque and Waterloo, holding to a more Wisconsin-like devotion to the Democrats. That has been shifting.
And the supermajorities in western Iowa are interesting, too. The 85-15 gap you mention is likely Sioux County, where I was raised. It's always been R territory, but in recent years it's just a wipeout. Sioux County, as was discussed at length years back on Steve's other site, is an outlier in that it's a prosperous and growing rural area. Democrats really don't have much to offer to Sioux County voters, who seem to have finally grasped that they are people the Woke Establishment despises the most: rural, very heavily of northern-European (Dutch) extraction, Christian, self-reliant, prosperous -- they are the poster-demons of Wokeness.