10th anniversary post: Turn red for what?

(Source: X. Used without permission.)

Don’t make me waste a whole damn half a day here, OK? Look, I came here. We can be nice to each other, or we can talk turkey. I’m here for one simple reason: I like you very much, and it’s good for my credentials with the Hispanic or Latino community. You know, on the East Coast, they like being called Hispanics, you know this? On the West Coast, they like being called Latinos. They said, ‘Sir, please use the term Latino when you’re in New Mexico,’ and I said ‘I’ve always heard Hispanic.’ … I take a poll, and it’s 97 percent. I was right. A free poll. As I was saying, I love the Hispanics.--DONALD TRUMP, 10/31/2024

Ten years ago, in the mid-term elections of 2014, the Republicans gained a majority in the Senate and thereby unified control of Congress. Along the way they flipped the Iowa U.S. Senate seat that had been held for 30 years by Democrat Tom Harkin, and has been held ever since by Republican Joni Ernst. Ernst came to prominence with a hog-filled primary commercial in which she promised to "Make 'em squeal" in Washington. That vividly captured the Republicans' victorious message, which was directed at voter dissatisfaction while being vague about how they would make it go away.

My 2014 post-election post was full of mystification about the Republicans' content-free success, as well as Ernst's easy victory in Iowa. Rereading it seems like finding a letter from a previous civilization, as 2014 proved to be a turning point in Iowa politics. Beginning that year, the Hawkeye State has swung sharply towards the Republicans. Democratic presidential candidates had won Iowa every election but one from 1988-2012, but Donald Trump won by 10 percentage points in 2016 and eight in 2020 (uselectionatlas.org), and he is expected to win easily again this year. Republicans now hold more than two-thirds of seats in both houses of the legislature, and all statewide offices but one (which they lost by less than a percentage point.) Iowa is a good example of politics fueled by grievances that never get solved, while politicians that play to them become more popular. Turning red, indeed.

As different as 2014 seemed to be from 2012, it's easily recognizable in the political environment of 2024. Economic data indicate we have mostly recovered from a recent blow, but many people are not feeling it. The right track/wrong track average was 28-66 then, 27-65 now (Real Clear Politics). Economic inequality in America continues to rise, which surely contributes to that apparent discrepancy: the GINI Index was 41.5 in 2014, highest on record and highest in the developed world, and was 41.3 in 2022, the last year for which there are data (FRED). That definitely affects people's worldview, including political trust, efficacy, and engagement, though of course not all in the same way (Garon and Stacy 2024). It's a dry statistic that reflects the reality that a lot of people are feeling and expressing in all sorts of ways, viz. an apparent rise in road rage.

Another dry statistic is the number of degrees (1.9 F) the climate has warmed since the pre-industrial era, which is reflected in an increasing incidence and severity of natural disasters, including (this year) major hurricanes in the southeast, severe flooding in North Carolina and Spain, and weeks without rain in the Midwest as well as an admittedly gorgeous but abnormally warm fall. (On how climate politics contributes to lack of emergency preparedness, see University of Michigan 2024.) Natural disasters too impact people's lives in ways that aren't easily coped with, starting with increasing insurance rates.

So, it may seem strange for our national reaction to frightening change to be support for a party that plans to repeal the federal health insurance program, and a presidential candidate who has called global warming a hoax. (For projected impacts of Trump's climate policies after 2025, see "Analysis" 2024.) This same candidate, Donald Trump, held a grotesque rally in New York last weekend with warm up speakers spewing hate to a cheering crowd, followed by Trump's own rambling narcissistic rage. This is how Trump has rolled since he began his political career nine years ago, so comes as no surprise, and outside of some especially inflammatory comments barely qualifies as news (Koul 2024). There may be solid arguments for Republican policies, but instead we get name calling, and lies about Ohioans eating cats and dogs, gangs taking over cities, FEMA hurricane aid being diverted to undocumented immigrants, and the 2020 election. Always the election.

As President, Trump benefited from coming to office at a time of peace and prosperity. For four years, he was an agent of chaos and cruelty, managing to break a great deal of china in the shop even before the pandemic. His campaign is full of more of this (see links at Bruni 2024), salted with self-praise and the vaguest promises of good outcomes. So how is this guy standing at the brink of returning to the Oval Office? Why is he even above 20 percent in the polls, much less the 46.8 percent in today's 538 average? 

In my capacity as political scientist, I have struggled for nine years to explain Trump's support. I feel less and less confident in my ability to assess national politics the longer this goes on. Just asking people about their political stances is often fruitless; often you get an echo of what campaigns are saying. (Why, for example, is immigration the "most important problem" facing Montana voters, and I think #2 in Iowa, two red states that are experiencing very little population influx of any kind?) So what follows is admittedly tentative. 

I think there are three broad reasons why many people find Trump continually appealing. These are unscientific impressions, based on conversations with Trump supporters I know. They aren't mutually exclusive; in other words, some Trump supporters may share more than one of these perspectives.

1. Preference for Republican policy options (Trump is awful/embarrassing, but he's our only chance to get what we need/want). Trump's own policy expressions have been characteristically erratic, but if you strongly prefer, say, lower taxes, or an end to health insurance subsidies, or a ban on abortion, you're not going to get those from the Democratic Party. You'd have to discount Trump promising to jack up tariffs or deport millions of undocumented workers or bring the Federal Reserve Board under his thumb, not to mention sic the army on protestors, and all the other undemocratic things, but he says so many weird things that probably you can hope it's all just talk and you'll get some measure of traditional Republican policies under a Trump administration. "I don't like Donald Trump," billionaire Nelson Peltz reportedly told a fundraising dinner. "He's a terrible human being, but our country's in a bad place and we can't afford Joe Biden" (Glasser 2024: 46). Nikki Haley made a similar argument in The Wall Street Journal right before Election Day (Haley 2024). I'd hope there could be a better conservative messenger; as I said about abortion a few years ago, the more these ideas are tied to Trump, the more vulnerable they are to rejection when he is finally repudiated.

2. Low information (Trump is cool. And strong.) 

If you've read this far, you probably pay more attention to politics than most people, and it's hard to remember that a lot of people are going off vague impressions. They may not know all the wacky things Trump says or does, or how many of his former staff are begging us please not to reelect this guy, because they're not paying close attention. A lot of them remember the pre-pandemic years as relatively placid, and assume Trump must have had something to do with that. Or they may hear something that Biden or Harris said and assume the hate is flowing both ways. Their support is less about a package of policies than an idea of Trump as folk hero standing against the elites--a latter day Jesse James, if you will, or a modern day Cyrus. Hence all those exaggerated images...

Source: amazon.com

...of a man who in real life is 78 years old, very overweight, and has difficulty climbing into the cab of a truck. But, as Glasser's long article in the New Yorker (cited below) documents, there are plenty of elites putting their fortunes behind Trump's return to office, and they're fine with you buying whatever it is he's selling. 

3. Frustrated entitlement (Trump is fighting for me. He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword. He's coming for you, and I'm glad!) 

On Day 1, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history to get the criminals out. We will get critical race theory and transgender insanity the hell out of our school. Kamala Harris is a train wreck who has destroyed everything in her path.--DONALD TRUMP, 10/27/2024

As many people out there are understandably anxious about their futures, so for some reason is Donald Trump, based on his constant bragging, insults, and lying. He also has a very comprehensive sense of grievance, with which he's managed through considerable rhetorical skill to inspire millions of people to identify. If he, and we, aren't getting what we deserve, it must be someone's fault (cf. Nussbaum 2018)! Anything that goes wrong--the pandemic, inflation, Trump himself getting shot at a rally--must be the fault of some nefarious actors who must be crushed. Trump and his allies have effectively directed the blame for economic and social anxiety towards immigrants (always from Latin America), gays and lesbians and transgendered people, feminists, protestors, city residents, political opponents, reporters, poll workers, and anyone else they find inconvenient. This is the logic of replacement theory, the idea that difference is intrinsically threatening. Those seeds have certainly found fertile ground. Thousands cheered Tony Hinchcliffe's hateful comments at Madison Square Garden last weekend, while hundreds more were outside chanting "Kamala is a whore!"

Here politics is being used as revenge fantasy (Remember "Lock her up!") rather than as a means of deciding solutions to common problems. But none of the pro-Trump rationales, frankly, is good for our common life. No policy victory is worth what Trump is putting the country through. In the real-world communities in which we variously live, we have a lot to work through, and we have to make room for a lot of people who aren't us. These were challenging even before Trump galumphed onto the scene, and will continue to be so when he finally goes away. I only wish more people could join us in building community, and be better at critical thinking instead of joining Trump in punching down.

I think the answer, for now, is not to let our national political disease run our lives. I take heart in the people in my life and my town who continue to work for better community. "Where there's life, there's hope," as Tolkien's character Sam Gamgee says, and while we're hoping, we can hope for a more loving and more practical world.

"How did you know the world was waiting just for you?"

SEE ALSO:

"The Election and Our Common Life," 8 November 2016

Susan B. Glasser, "Purchasing Power," New Yorker, 28 October 2024, 46-55

Nicholas Kristof, "I've Covered Authoritarians Abroad. Now I Fear One at Home," New York Times, 2 November 2024

Martha C. Nussbaum, The Monarchy of Fear: A Philosopher Looks at Our Political Crisis (Simon & Schuster, 2018)

Catherine Rampell, "Only Care About Your Pocketbook? Trump is Still the Wrong Choice," Washington Post, 29 October 2024, Opinion | Only care about your pocketbook? Trump is still the wrong choice. - The Washington Post

Is Iowa Becoming Even More Republican?

 

Governor Kim Reynolds won 95 counties and reelection

Iowa turned red in 2014 after years as a purple state, and Republican control of the state endured what was a pretty good year nationally for Democrats in 2018. Governor Reynolds, winning her first election, won majorities in 88 of Iowa's 99 counties, and the Republicans controlled both houses of the legislature. This year, notwithstanding the coronavirus pandemic, the Trump presidency, and the ongoing decline of most of the state, Reynolds won 95 counties and Republicans gains in both houses neared supermajority levels (with a handful of races still to be decided). All six Iowa members of the U.S. Congress are now Republican. Are Iowa's recent Republican tendencies getting even stronger?

I will, with due caution given limited data, say yes. There's variation across election years and indeed across races, so there's no certainty that Democrats won't do better statewide in 2024 than they did this year. But all indications are that Republicans have increased their hold on the rural vote, and at least this year made substantial gains in some urban counties.

After the 2018 election I looked at the ten most populous counties in Iowa, which accounted for a majority of the state's overall population as well as 74.5 percent of statewide job growth. The story seemed to be that large urban counties were Democratic to the extent that they were also high in population and job growth, job growth, and (by Iowa standards) non-white population. Extending the analysis  the following summer to all Iowa counties highlighted the difference between growing and non-growing counties. Reynolds won over 60 percent of the vote in the 70 counties that had lost population since 2010, while barely winning 40 percent of the vote in the seven counties that grew faster than the U.S. as a whole. 

Curiously, the number of votes cast in the two groups of counties was roughly the same. With Democrats strong in growing areas, and Republicans strong in non-growing areas, time seemed to be on the Democrats' side. While time may in fact be on the Democrats' side, so far the numbers are trending the opposite way.

We're down to six counties that grew faster than the U.S. as a whole; all are large by Iowa standards. They include Polk, Story, Dallas and Warren counties in the Des Moines-Ames area, as well as Johnson and Linn counties in the Cedar Rapids-Iowa City area. (Included in the 2018 fast-growing group, but omitted here, is little Jefferson county in southeast Iowa. After showing population growth every year in annual U.S. Census Bureau estimates, the 2020 census showed a 7 percent decline there since 2010, an anomaly I discussed here.) Scott County (Davenport) and Dubuque County (Dubuque) are other large Iowa counties that grew faster than the overall state population increase in the 2010s.

Most of these eight large and growing counties showed pretty consistent partisanship across statewide elections from 2016-2022. Johnson County (Iowa City) is by far the most Democratic each year, while the suburban Des Moines counties of Dallas and Warren are the most Republican. The slower-growing urban counties of Dubuque and Scott, on the other hand, both shifted substantially to the Republicans in the 2022 gubernatorial race.

PCT R/D BY COUNTY, 2016-2022

COUNTY (growth 10-20)	2016 PRES (Trump/Clinton)	2018 GOV (Reynolds/Hubbell)	2020 PRES (Trump/Biden)	2022 GOV (Reynolds/DeJear)
Johnson +16.8	29.5-70.5	27.1-72.9	27.9-72.1	29.7-70.3
Story +10.0	43.1-56.9	39.7-60.3	41.1-58.9	44.9-55.1
Polk +14.3	43.8-56.2	40.7-59.3	42.2-57.8	46.0-54.0
Linn +9.0	45.1-54.9	42.8-57.2	43.0-57.0	47.4-52.6
Scott +5.7	49.2-50.8	48.2-51.8	48.2-51.8	55.7-44.3
Dallas +50.7	55.2-44.8	51.7-48.3	51.0-49.0	55.9-44.1
Dubuque +6.0	50.7-49.3	49.3-50.7	48.5-51.5	58.3-41.7
Warren +13.4	58.7-41.3	53.9-46.1	58.6-41.4	63.2-36.8
All Others -1.2	62.8-37.2	58.9-41.1	62.8-37.2	68.6-31.4
IOWA +4.7	55.0-45.0	51.4-48.6	54.1-45.9	59.5-40.5
Sioux +6.4	86.5-13.5	86.8-13.2	83.9-16.1	90.9-09.1
Dickinson +6.2 (Iowa Great Lakes area)	68.8-31.2	64.0-36.0	67.0-33.0	74.5-25.5
Madison +5.5	66.7-33.3	63.4-36.6	67.5-32.5	71.9-28.1
Clarke +5.0	64.9-35.1	64.7-35.3	68.2-31.8	75.2-24.8

The rest of the state outside these eight counties showed a pretty steady increase in support for Republicans. Collectively, they were 7+ percentage points above statewide in 2016 and 2018, and around 9 percentage points in 2020 and 2022. This holds true even where their population has grown, as witness the strongly Republican Sioux County in northwestern Iowa becoming even more strongly Republican through this period.

The House of Representatives races in these years also showed consistency across large urban counties, but Republican shifts in the rest of the state (including, again, Dubuque and Scott counties). Note that Sioux County, with a population of about 35000, can produce Republican majorities that swamp Democratic majorities from larger counties, particularly Story which is in the same U.S. House district.

CONGRESSIONAL VOTE DIFFERENTIAL BY COUNTY, 2016-2022

COUNTY	2016 HR	2018 HR	2020 HR	2022 HR
Johnson	+27305	+32012	+32028	+27349
Story	+4815	+14095	+7555	+3613
Polk	+271	+33473	+39247	+26498
Linn	+3361	+16979	+13148	+9907
Scott	+6448	+9270	+5516	+3417
Dallas	+9828	+2496	+2540	+1575
Dubuque	+4490	+3077	+278	+2904
Warren	+5922	+2415	+3775	+4529
All Others	+161821 (59.5-40.5)	+51657 (53.7-46.3)	+188604 (60.5-39.5)	+206225 (65.8-34.2)
IOWA	+139861 (54.7-58.2)	+52338 (48.0-52.0)	+97147 (53.0-47.0)	+151283 (56.3-44.7)
Sioux	+11846	+7142	+13271	+11384
Dickinson	+2884	+745	+3630	+3727
Madison	+3372	+2160	+2731	+2492
Clarke	+321	+414	+1073	+1175

This is admittedly rough analysis, focusing on the dimension of growing vs. not-growing areas, and using results from a relative handful of races. There are other dimensions to consider, including urban/rural, or race. Iowa has a strikingly low nonwhite population, but Democrats tend to do better in counties like Black Hawk (Waterloo) which is "only" 78 percent white. (Even then, Black Hawk went Democratic in the 2022 congressional race but Republican in the gubernatorial race.)

It does suggest that Republican strength overall in the state is growing, with the growth concentrated in shrinking rural areas and possibly slower-growing urban areas. This is consistent with national analysis by The Washington Post, which found among Republican gains in 2022, "many of their largest swings" were in districts Trump won in the 2020 presidential election (Keating, Stevens and Mourtoupalas 2022). Of course, they are looking shifts over two years, whereas I am looking over six years and trying to spot or at least deduce longer-term trends.

So, for the time being, politics in Iowa looks like more of the same, maybe bolder. The state appears to be continuing its shift towards the Republican Party, but not uniformly, so that divisions within the state are increasing. "Whatever it takes, whatever it costs, they are fundamentally trying to change who we are as a country," Reynolds said of Democrats at a Sioux City rally headlined by former President Trump. To the extent that she and the legislature are only here for those who she called "the real Iowa," this will not be a comfortable state for those who are in any way different.

DATA SOURCES: 

Elections 2016-18-20: https://sos.iowa.gov/elections/pdf/2020/general/canvsummary.pdf

Governor 22: cnn.com/election/2022/results/iowa

House 22: https://www.usatoday.com/elections/results/2022-11-08/us-house/iowa/

SEE ALSO

"Small Towns, Rural Areas, and State Legislatures," 11 June 2019

"Election 2018 and What Happens Next," 20 November 2018

"Turn Red For What," 5 November 2014

Cedar Rapids mayoral runoff 2021

 

Washington High School Step Team, January 2020:
Can these young people find their futures in Cedar Rapids?

City Council elections are opportunities to take stock of where we are as a city and where we would like to be going. In my post from the last mayoral election four years ago, I complained that the candidates lacked either specific policy proposals or an overall vision of the city's future direction. I concluded: America, which includes Cedar Rapids, faces some profound challenges. How do we enable a satisfactory quality of life and economic opportunity for our citizens in the face of economic, environmental, racial, an financial challenges?... We've managed to have a school board election and two rounds of a city council election this fall without serious debate over any of these.

I did give the 2017 finalists, Brad Hart and Monica Vernon, credit for strategic competence: As a manager of problems with high levels of personal activity and familiarity with the city, either would be fine. Does that seem a bit naive today? All I can say is, after two years of relative quiet, the problems of 2020 and 2021 were of unusual magnitude: a worldwide pandemic that refused to go away, a summer of civil rights protests responding to murders elsewhere but recalling a 2016 police shooting here, and then the incredible force of the August 10 derecho. In 2017 I had been thinking about traffic and the city budget and stuff. The city and school district did as much as they could with the pandemic given heavy-handed oversight by a regressive state government, but the policy response to civil rights protests failed to satisfy advocates and makes progress on inclusion uncertain, and precious time was lost with Mayor Hart's delayed response to the derecho. Then there was Hart's deranged voice mail message for CSPS director Taylor Burgen. Perhaps day-to-day competence is not enough.

On November 2, 2021, city council members Marty Hoeger, Tyler Olson, and Ashley Vanorny were reelected without opposition; in District 3, Dale Todd won reelection by a wide margin (62-37) over  Tamara Marcus, the county sustainability manager. Marcus proved to be an exceptionally thoughtful candidate, and I hope she will continue to be present in local politics. The only race, then, to require a runoff was the race for mayor, where former newscaster Tiffany O'Donnell led with 42 percent to 28 percent for both Mayor Hart and Amara Andrews. Andrews had exactly 41 more votes than Hart, who conceded and endorsed O'Donnell. The runoff will occur Tuesday, November 30.

The executive power in Cedar Rapids, like most towns, is mostly in the hands of the city manager since 2010, Jeff Pomeranz, who by all accounts has made good choices on policy (one-way to two-way conversions and protected bike lanes) and city staff. What's left to the mayor, besides one vote on a nine-member City Council, is the public visibility that comes with the position. Ron Corbett (2019-2017) used his position, among other things, to advocate for health and fitness, promoting Blue Zones, commuter as well as recreational cycling, and sidewalks. Who we elect as mayor says much about how we see ourselves as a city.

Meanwhile, a letter writer to the Cedar Rapids Gazette Sunday complained about the lack of amenities for senior citizens, mainly by railing against cyclists. I don't know enough to comment on the senior amenity situation, and can only wonder how a town full of voting senior citizens could possibly be deficient. I can say we need a mayor who can explain to people why inclusion is a good thing, and why policies that seem to benefit people who are not you can actually benefit you by improving the city as a whole.

Tiffany O'Donnell (from her campaign site)

O'Donnell became well-known as a television newscaster for 20 years, including 15 at the local Fox affiliate. She is the CEO of Women Lead Change, which calls itself "the state's premier leadership organization for women, dedicated to the development, advancement and promotion of women," and was active in the founding of and fundraising for the New Bo City Market. Her website highlights the need to "take the city where it needs to go" in order to retain young people and "the workers of the future." There's not much issue detail, and a lot of obvious, but her priorities page includes downtown and river revitalization, and the intent to "incentivize and support growth of existing businesses" and "lean into our entrepreneurial economy," which are worthy goals indeed. Her last-week op-ed (O'Donnell 2021) touted her leadership credentials and the need for change.

Amara Andrews and friends (from campaign website)

Andrews, a newcomer to city politics, is an executive with True North Companies whose beat includes transportation and business development. She was also active in business development in Champaign, Illinois. She is involved in Advocates for Social Justice, which arose out of the 2020 protests, and the Academy for Personal and Social Success. Her website is far more substantive than O'Donnell's. She notes the need to shift business support towards assisting existing small and midsize businesses, while attaching public goods conditions when we use tax incentives; the connection between walking and biking infrastructure and needed improvements to our public transit system; and one-stop "opportunity centers" to help workers with any and all barriers to employment. Her last-week op-ed (Andrews 2021) discussed the coalition-building and persistence that led to the creation of the city's citizens review board, and talked about the need to include the unhoused in policy efforts.

Both candidates are hitting the right notes, even if Andrews's are arranged for a chamber ensemble and O'Donnell's for Casio keyboard. I'm a word guy, so Andrews is the one speaking to me, yet it would be nice to have a Mayor O'Donnell bringing her networking experience to bear on our common life. Both articulate the need for policy change, which is refreshing in a city where the political culture can be maddeningly complacent. Cedar Rapids has done some remarkable things in the last 15 years, but we are far from being the inclusive, environmental, walkable, and opportunity city we need to be. To have someone in the mayor's seat showing why and how we need to do things differently would really be something.

SEE ALSO:

Amara Andrews, "Choice is Between Change and More of the Same in C.R.," Cedar Rapids Gazette, 21 November 2021, 1C, 4C

Tiffany O'Donnell, "Time to Stop Being 'OK' With "OK' in Cedar Rapids," Cedar Rapids Gazette, 21 November 2021, 1C, 4C