A State of Temporary Blue Rebound: Iowa's Four House Elections from 2018
Introduction: I consider Iowa to be a state whose election results tend to "swing with the national tide," and 2018 was no exception. After Donald Trump (R) won Iowa by almost double-digits in 2016, Iowa swung back at the Federal-level two years later, with two of the state's three Republican House seats flipping blue and the third almost flipping as well. Yet, as noted after the 2020 elections, despite the 2018 Iowa Democratic resurgence, the state also showed signs that it was permanently becoming more Republican, even without considering the 2018 Gubernatorial election and the county-level results from the House elections. Today's post will look at Iowa's four Congressional elections from 2018 and explore what the results mean for future Buckeye State electoral politics, and whether it can still be said if Iowa moves with the tide.
Visual 1: Iowa 2018 U.S. House Results by District
Data Source: "Election Canvass"
District-by-District Rundown:
- IA-1: This district was previously covered on the post about perennially-competitive Congressional districts, but it's time to come back to IA-1. Most of the following information is a summarized version of that post's discussion about IA-1. Spanning Northeastern Iowa, this region voted for Barack Obama (D) by double-digits twice before voting for Donald Trump (R) twice. At the House-level, as explained on the earlier post, the district started the decade being represented by Bruce Braley (D), who left in 2014 to seek Iowa's open U.S. Senate seat (which he failed to win). The open IA-1 was won by Rod Blum (D), who won another term two years later as Trump took the state by 9%, and won the district. In 2018, Blum was considered one of the most vulnerable Republicans due to expectations that the district would swing back to its Democratic roots. This proved true on Election Day, when state legislator Abby Finkenauer (D) flipped the district blue once again with a 5% winning margin. Reflecting the district's perennial competitiveness, Rep. Finkenauer's aspirations for a second term in 2020 were thwarted byAshley Hinson (R), who flipped back the seat as Trump won the state and district again.
- IA-2: Unlike IA-1 and IA-3, IA-2 stands out for having a Democratic representative through the whole of Iowa's Republican shift after 2012, that is until 2020. Before 2020, IA-2 was represented by Rep. Dave Loebsack (D), who originally won the seat in an upset victory as part of the 2006 Blue Wave (Kondik, "House Rating"). Until 2020, Rep. Loebsack had multiple close races (especially 2014), but managed to hold onto the seat every time. This includes 2016, when he became one of 12 Democratic House members holding a Trump-won congressional seat, and one that voted for Obama by double-digits before voting for Trump (Kondik, "House 2018"). In 2018, Rep. Loebsack won a double-digit victory over Republican Christopher Peters (who had also ran in 2016) that restored some of the pre-Trump Democratic county map, especially along in the "Driftless Region" along the Mississippi River (Sullivan; Visual 1). Several months after the 2018 elections, Rep. Loebsack announced his retirement from the seat in 2020, which was immediately considered to be a competitive race (Kondik, "House Rating"). "Competitive" was proven true on Election Day, as Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks (who had previously ran for the seat multiple times) won by 6 votes against Democrat Rita Hart (D), while Trump won IA-2 once again (Foley; Singer, "Daily Kos"). In the aftermath, Hart tried to dispute the election results, even after Miller-Meeks was sworn-in. She ended up dropping this challenge in March, but not without drawing criticism from prominent Republicans (Karsen).
- IA-3: Despite containing the increasingly-blue city of Des Moines and its suburbs, IA-3's overall lean is also influenced by the rest of the district being majority-rural and dark-red. During the 2018 elections, this seat was held by Rep. David Young (R), who had first won the seat in 2014 after Rep. Tom Latham (R) retired. Latham in turn had beaten Rep. Leonard Boswell (D) in 2012 when the two incumbents ran in IA-3 due to redistricting (Kondik, "Getaway"). Like IA-1 and IA-2, IA-3 voted for both Obama and Trump, although the former did not win by double-digits in 2012 (Singer, "Daily Kos"). For this reason, it was also considered a competitive district in 2018, especially with the Democratic nominee being businesswoman Cindy Axne (D), who fit the profile of female Democratic candidates in similar districts by running heavily on healthcare (Rood et al.). Axne went on to win a narrow victory in 2018 against Rep. Young, which she followed-up with another narrow win in a rematch two years later (Belin). After the 2020 elections, as Rep. Finkenauer lost and the open IA-2 flipped, Rep. Axne became the only Democratic member in Iowa's Congressional delegation. The irony of this is that after the 2014 elections, the only Democratic member in the delegation was Rep. Loebsack in IA-2, who had won a narrow victory himself that year. As will be discussed in the conclusion, this could be taken as evidence of the Trump-era shift in the Iowa's Democratic base from being more spread out to becoming more concentrated in the state's cities, evident by the district voting for Trump by 0.1%, compared with the others having larger margins (Singer, "Daily Kos").
- IA-4: Even in a normal "Blue Wave" year, IA-4 would not be expected to be a competitive seat, as it is the most-Republican-leaning district in the state by a longshot (Singer, "Despite"). But, the district's Congressional race ended up being close and competitive in 2018 due to the presence of its controversial incumbent, Rep. Steve King (R), who openly espoused pro-White supremacist and other controversial views. Going into the 2018 general election, with these comments resurfacing and Rep. King meeting an Austrian neo-Nazi party as part of a European trip (among other controversies), Congressional Republican leaders denounced him, refused to support his campaign, and stripped the Representative of all committee assignments (Arkin et al.; Nilsen). In the general election, King faced J.D. Scholten (D), a paralegal and former athlete who presented himself as a moderate Democrat. Yet, the district's lean was too much for Scholten despite Rep. King's extensive baggage and 2018 being a Blue Wave year; as the incumbent won by just over 3% (Nilsen). Two years later Rep. King would lose the Republican primary to Randy Feenstra, who went on to win a large victory over Scholten in the general (Singer, "Despite").
Statewide Discussion and Analysis: One of the main results that sticks out is the extent (or lack) of the 2018 Democratic resurgence after Trump's 2016 victory in Iowa. For context, in the latter year, Hillary Clinton (D) only won the counties of Polk (Des Moines), Story (Ames), Johnson (Iowa City), Linn (Cedar Rapids), Black Hawk (Waterloo), and Scott (Davenport) ("Iowa Election Results 2016"). Note that in 2012, Obama won over 30 counties in the state (Sullivan), which shows the extent of Trump's surge, especially in rural and small-city counties. While some of these Obama-Trump or -Romney counties flipped back in the 2018 House elections, it is notable that most that did were dominated by smaller cities, such as Cerro Gordo (Mason City), Des Moines (Burlington), Woodbury (Sioux City) and Webster (Fort Dodge). Only several thinly-populated and rural-dominated counties voted for Democratic House candidates. The most notable instance was in IA-2, where incumbent Democratic Rep. Dave Loebsack won a double-digit victory. Another group of such counties voted light-red this year in IA-4, possibly a reflection of Rep. King's controversial nature sagging down his performance.
What these results reveal is the 2018 Democratic resurgence in Iowa was concentrated in urban-dominated counties, while more rural- and small town-dominated counties that had previously been the backbone of Democratic victories prior to Trump remained red, even in IA-1 and -2. This trend continued into 2020, when Joe Biden (D) won the same group of counties that Clinton did four years prior ("Iowa Election Results and Maps 2020"), although some downballot Democratic strength in Trump-2018 Democratic counties remained, especially in IA-2 and -3. In the former, Clinton (Clinton) and Jefferson (two counties left of Burlington on Visual 1) Counties voted for Hart, who outran Biden by several percentage points despite her nail-thin loss ("Singer, "Daily Kos" ; Singer, "Despite"). Finally, it is important to remember that IA-4 likely would not have been competitive without Rep. King on the ballot, which may further present the image that the state "rebounded" after Trump's 9% win of the state when looking at the U.S. House election results alone.
Conclusion: One of the reasons I like analyzing Iowa election results by Congressional District like in is because the district borders do not split any counties, something that probably stems from the state's redistricting procedures mandating no county splits ("Iowa"). In a post-2020 election Tweet, I went as far to compare ABC's election map to a toddler's puzzle because of each district's shape along with the lack of repeating colors for any Iowa district; note that I made the Tweet before the situation in IA-2 was resolved. Regardless of the reason, this arrangement makes studying Iowa's election results by Congressional district simplistic, especially in comparing House results with other races in the same area. Like other states, Iowa is set to redraw its Congressional districts soon, as the deadline is exactly a month from when this blog post is published (Akin). There is no telling what the final districts will look like at this point, but considering the pro-Republican trend that has taken place in the last decade, it will likely not be easy for Democratic candidates to win any districts in the state, barring other electoral trends. Going back to the first sentence under "introduction," 2018 is arguably Iowa's most recent instance of "swinging with the national tide" overall, evident by 3 of its 4 House seats being Democratic-held for the first time in the decade. However, despite its deviation from the national Presidential result, it somewhat fit the definition in 2020 due to the loss of 2 Democratic U.S. House seats, something that matched the trend in House races of that year.
Works Cited:
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