Iowa 2020 Election Post Mortem - Part I

The election may or may not be over depending on who you talk to, but people on all sides for the most part are ready to put this thing to bed. 

Even as much as I love this stuff, I am ready to put this bed to. 2020 was a good reminder to me that while Presidential elections are sexy, local elections are often much more impactful in our lives. Despite Democrats’ best wishes (as well conversely for the other side) there were no great revelations. Texas was never in play. There was no ‘blue wave’ nor a ‘red wave’. 

The story inevitably is Arizona and Georgia flipping from Red to Blue. Georgia going Democratic for the first time since 1992. Arizona going Blue for only the second time (1996) since Truman was in the White House. As an Iowan who generally leans left, the Hawkeye state provides an interesting case. At six electoral votes, Iowa has seemingly been inconsequential, but with a reputation as a ‘purple’ state offers enough of a potential swing that Obama brought Bruce Springsteen here on Election eve 2016.

The conventional wisdom going in was that Trump had flipped Eastern Iowa, which had went to Trump, and if someone could talk economics and jobs, the state was in play. Moreover, Dems had three of the four US House seats and that looked safe. Even if the Dems had only just flipped two of these in 2018. Western Iowa would not be sending Steve King for the first time in 17 years, but that would surely stay Red. 

Joni Ernst’s Senate seat looked vulnerable. The one term Senator had hooked herself to Trump. The Democratic candidate had raised $40 million and the race itself was 2nd in overall spending to the Cunningham-Tillis race in North Carolina. Though never decisive, the Dem contender Theresa Greenfield would lead many polls. Though aggregate polls gave Ernst a slight advantage (Most polls showed Greenfeld with a slight lead, though one had Ernst up by as many as six points- more on this later). In many ways, Ernst’s poll numbers were on the rise and yet at the same time, the polls closest to the election had Greenfield ahead. But Ernst did win and the one poll that had her up by six nailed it. 

That poll was the notorious Right-leaning Insider Advantage, who famously was one of the few polls that had Trump winning in 2016. I found Greenfield an imperfect candidate, though she easily trounced candidates who were to the right and left of her. It is easy to second guess an election you have final results for. Still, it was easy to point to the money spent on the campaign from out of state and imply voters weren’t comfortable with that. Outside of Greenfield, Democrats in Iowa were trounced neatly everywhere. Although final rallies are not in, it looks like Republicans will take three of the four seats in the US House, eeking out District 3 (Des Moines) by a hair and losing District 2 (Iowa City) for the first time since 2007. Iowa at the end of the election looked conclusive. Trump carried 93 of the 99 counties and the map of Iowa no longer echoed the expected narrative (Going back to 2004, Eastern Iowa remained Blue as labor balanced the solid Red western part of the state). 

Instead it maybe more resembled the Georgia map we saw every night after the election. Blue in the Big Cities and Red everywhere else. Iowa Democrats surely wonder what must have happened. A few things come to mind. First, there is a lack of charismatic leadership in the Iowa Democratic Party. The last two candidates for Governor were uninspiring safe choices. Top Democrats like Sen Tom Harkin, US Rep Dave Loebsack and former State House majority leader and DLCC chair Mike Gronstal and former Governor and Obama cabinet member Tom Vilsach are all 70 years of age or closing in on it.

The Dems seemingly don’t have the bench strength. JD Scholten is young and exciting but stuck in the western Red State dead lands. Many of the party activists have become perennial candidates who don’t move the needle anymore. 

Second, Trump ran a strong campaign in Iowa. Now, I always made fun of the fact that there still might be voters making their mind up between Trump and Biden (How is that possible?), but the Republicans hit the ground hard. Seemingly, Trump or Pence was in the state every other week or so. I saw a Boomer Trump supporter post a meme that said ‘Trump almost won the election and barely campaigned’. 

I disagree for the strange reason that this meme is an insult to Trump. You can argue whether he should have in a Covid environment, but he campaigned hard and pounded the pavement. Biden went virtual and relied on others, making one last minute drive-in style rally in Des Moines. 

I would point out that Biden also used a similar playbook to what lost four years ago. While Trump and Pence stuck to Economy and Faith, Biden led with attacking Trump’s Covid response. It’s hard to say that this was a great motivator. 

In Iowa, it is the economy, stupid. Iowa did have a surge of Covid but the Republican Governor never fed into the panic, even postponing any Covid-related action and press conferences until after the election. So, while, for some, this might have been an issue, small town mentality is too persuasive. We are too spread out, it's a big city problem, and everyone I know who got it recovered. (More cynical Iowans might even place bets on it) 

I have mentioned it often but let’s not discount the Trump rallies around Iowa. Yes, these rallies aren’t much different from parades to celebrate the local high school football team. It’s the kind of thing intellectuals would dunk on all night. But what they did do was make that excitement. News outlets didn’t cover them but people talked about them. Let’s never discredit anything that rallies a base. 

Democrats stayed at home. That was purposeful, sure, but may have been a loss opportunity. These rallies helped solidify support for Trump to the point that they must be included in the 2024 discussion. Any potential candidate who is interested in the nomination would surely lose in Iowa. Ted Cruz beat Trump in 2016 with the evangelicals (and some Never Trumpers remain) but surely that train has not only left the station, it’s never coming back. Marco Rubio could surely offer an alternative but in 2016, he only really succeeded in the bigger cities of Iowa. 

This all leaves Mike Pence in a helluva spot. With Trump in the race, he could try to maneuver against him, but would surely not be able to compete. Even if Pence has some of the traits that Iowans have projected onto Trump, it doesn’t seem like there is an opportunity to exploit that. However, if Trump isn’t in any condition to run, Pence would surely use the Evangelicals to push him forward. He might be hard to beat.  Pence has always been someone who claims that he puts things in God's hands.

Part II- still to come- Was Joe Biden the problem in Iowa?