Is Iowa a Purple State Again?
Iowa voters may have leaned heavily Republican since 2016, but the data always showed the possibility for a sharp swing in the opposite direction given the right ingredients, according to Chris Larimer, a political science professor at the University of Northern Iowa who researches election data.
Those ingredients materialized during the midterm elections, mirroring a national mood that favored Democrats amid high everyday costs and low approval ratings for a Republican U.S. president.
Larimer and fellow UNI political science professor Donna Hoffman have long argued that Iowa retained its swing-state potential, though geography and county-by-county makeups meant pendulum shifts could take time to materialize.
“We still argued that given the geography, given the county-by-county makeup of Iowa, there was still that potential for swings to happen one way or the other,” Larimer said.
Rob Sand Won a Majority of 25 Iowa Counties
The Democratic map expanded significantly across the state. Rob Sand won a majority of votes in 25 Iowa counties, a dramatic leap from the four counties won by Democratic gubernatorial candidate Deidre DeJear four years prior, or the 10 won by Fred Hubbell in 2018.
These 25 counties represent the most won by a Democratic candidate for Iowa governor since Chet Culver carried 62 counties in the 2006 wave election. Sand secured nine counties in central Iowa, 14 in eastern Iowa including six along the Mississippi River, Cerro Gordo in northern Iowa, and Woodbury in heavily conservative western Iowa.
Despite Sand’s 11-percentage-point gubernatorial victory and Josh Turek’s U.S. Senate win, the results did not spell a uniform blue wave down the ballot. Executive branch races proved to be a mixed bag of close margins.
Republican incumbents Mike Naig won Agriculture Secretary, Roby Smith took Treasurer, and Paul Pate secured Secretary of State. Meanwhile, Democrats Nate Willems ousted incumbent Attorney General Brenna Bird, and Taylor Wettach defeated Republican candidate Chris Cournoyer to win the open auditor seat.
Republicans Spent Heavily in Tight Statewide Executive Contests
Voter participation varied across contests, with 1,366,516 total votes cast in the governor’s race compared to 1,360,839 for the U.S. Senate. Total turnout dipped even lower for other executive offices, hitting a low of 1,322,032 for Treasurer.
Three statewide executive contests were decided by margins of less than two percentage points. Willems defeated Bird by 1.8 points, Smith held off John Norwood by 0.7 points, and Wettach edged Cournoyer by 0.5 points.
State campaign finance records show Republicans poured financial support into these tight races in the final days before the election. Between October 15 and October 27, the Republican Party of Iowa provided direct donations or in-kind contributions totaling $24,000 to Naig, and $15,000 each to Smith and Cournoyer.
Larimer noted that official results from the Iowa Secretary of State’s Office are expected to show high turnout among no-party and young voters, pointing to a mobilization effort that mirrors the dynamics seen in 2018.
