Not long ago, Iowa was anything but a pro-Trump state. Good people from the Midwest, polite and politically moderate. Soberly pious people who valued respect for traditional values and the fear of God. What exactly happened to them?
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The first meeting of this big electoral year in the United States will be held on Monday in Iowa. The Republican Party caucuses will decide between candidates who can continue to dream of the White House and those who should understand that this will not be their year.
This cycle offers no surprises: Donald Trump will win the state, not only because the average poll gives him more than 36 points ahead of his closest rivals, but also because interest in him within the Republican electorate has taken on the appearance of a cult.
The suspense, if there is one, lies in who will finish in second place: Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, who would thus prove that her campaign is indeed on a roll, or Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, who would lie to those who have lost hope in a campaign that began with so much confidence.
AN ISLAND OF REAL ESTATE
It’s an anomaly that Iowa is the first state to sort candidates in the presidential race. An anomaly from the start: in the late 1960s and early 1970s, because more time was needed to print election materials, state caucuses were held before other states could pronounce. It stayed.
An anomaly too, because Iowa bears very little resemblance to the demographic composition of the United States. While whites make up 59% of the U.S. population, they make up 84% of the state’s residents.
The 13.6% black population nationwide is reduced to 4.4% in Iowa; same thing for Latinos who make up 19% of the country’s population, but only 7% of Iowa’s.
TRUMP, THE ULTIMATE ANOMALY
Iowa voters – courteous, calm and reasonable – have fallen under the spell of Donald Trump, the most irreverent politician of his generation. More than one in two Republican voters prefer Donald Trump to any other candidate in this race for the party’s nomination.
If the character does not seem to match, the demographic reality fits better. A recent survey from Wall Street Journal shows that Trump is – at 71% – the number one choice of rural voters, well beyond the support, still majority, that he receives among all Republican voters.
This rural America – Iowa, in particular – contains a higher concentration of white voters without college degrees, a group that Trump pulled toward the Republican Party when he ran for president in 2016. We also age faster in the Iowa campaigns and Donald Trump consistently outperforms his opponents among Americans 65 and older.
He faces 91 criminal charges, insults judges with whom he disagrees, humiliates his opponents by exploiting their weaknesses, or even, in some cases, their disability. And yet Iowa Republicans are preparing to crown him. To hell with modesty!
IOWA, VOTERS WHOSE HEARTS HAVE BEEN SALKING FOR 25 YEARS
2000
- Al Gore – Democrat 48.54%
- George W. Bush – Republican 48.22%
2004
- George W. Bush – Republican 49.9%
- John Kerry – Democrat 49.23%
2008
- Barack Obama – Democrat 53.93%
- John McCain – Republican 44.39%
2012
- Barack Obama – Democrat 51.99%
- Mitt Romney – Republican 46.18%
2016
- Donald Trump – Republican 51.15%
- Hillary Clinton – Democrat 41.74%
2020
- Donald Trump – Republican 53.09%
- Joe Biden – Democrat 44.89%