The Big Ten Strategy: Iowa

In the past few election cycles, Iowa has been a closely fought state.  In 2000, Al Gore beat George W. Bush in the state by three-tenths of a percentage point, or only 4,144 votes.  There was a one point swing between 2000 and 2004, but that was enough to give Bush a seven-tenths of a point margin over John Kerry.  Because of how close this was, nine counties switched over from 2000 to 2004.  This total allowed Bush to win by a hair over 10,000 votes.  These results indicate that Iowa is one of the great swing states in the nation, and should be tightly contested.

Obama may be a stronger general election candidate here than in other Midwestern states.  Geographic proximity is the main reason.  Iowans have strong ties to Illinois and Chicago in particular.  For the majority of Iowans, Chicago is the closest big city to them (I'm not counting Des Moines as a "big city", though some may view it as truly being big).  The long time Chicago Cubs AAA team, the Iowa Cubs, has been in Des Moines.  Chicago papers are commonly found in Iowa.  For these reasons, Obama is more well known in Iowa than in other places.  He certainly showed strength in the Iowa caucuses, which was instrumental in allowing him to successfully capture the Democratic nomination.

On paper, Iowa should be a solidly Republican state.  It has one major population center in the middle of the state, a higher than average rural population, a nearly all white populaton, and one of the oldest populations in the nation.  Yet, it has been a swing state in recent years.  Why?  The best explanation is that Democrats do better in rural areas here than in most states.  Iowa is one the few places where you will find a lot of old-fashioned farm Democrats, the descendants of William Jennings Bryan.  These people feel the pinch of trying to make family farming work and are receptive to the populism of Democrats.

Polk County, which is where Des Moines is located, has some 13 percent of the entire state's voters.  In recent years, the county has tilted slightly in the favor of Democrats.  The Democratic city of Des Moines has nearly, but not quite, been counterbalanced by Republican leaning suburbs.  The problem for a McCain strategist is that trying to get a better showing in 2008 is more dependent upon city votes than suburban votes.  Republicans have had virtually no success in recent times in winning urban votes, and even in Iowa city dwellers are reliably Democratic.

The best counties for Democrats have been in Eastern Iowa, particularly along the Mississippi River.  The most populated of these, Scott County, is part of the Quad Cities metro area.  It provided a roughly 3,000 vote margin in 2004 for Kerry.  Other river counties like Dubuque County tend to provide similarly small but important margins for Democrats.  The second most populated county, Linn County, is where Cedar Rapids is located.  This was Kerry's second best county by vote margin, as he won exactly 11,000 more votes than Bush here.  Kerry's best county was Johnson County, home of the University of Iowa where he won over 64% of the vote and about 19,000 more votes than Bush.

For Republicans, the area of strength is rural Western Iowa.  This is the area where archconservative Representative Steve King's district is.  Most of the counties hover around 60% Republican.  In the northwest corner of the state is Sioux County.  In this county of roughly 32,000 people and 16,000 voters, Bush won an astounding 85% of the vote.  The margin he won here, about 12,000 votes, was enough to wipe out the margin in Linn County, the second largest county in the state!  This was no fluke, as Sioux County voted for Bush in 2000 with some 83% of the vote.  To win, McCain must sustain the enthusiasm of conservatives in the west of the state, and particularly in Sioux County.

In Iowa, nearly every area is conceivably up for grabs.  With the exception of university towns and rural West Iowa, many people in the state are likely to consider both candidates this time around.  Obama could very well have an advantage due to his proximity to Iowa, but this likely won't be the deciding factor.  This is a state where voters demand candidates perform retail politics before they will cast their vote in a primary.  In a general election, an appropriate substitute (though visiting Iowa should be a priority as well) would be to focus on the ground game.  A top notch grassroots team could make the difference in Iowa.  Obama likely would have the edge because he generates more enthusiasm amongst his base than McCain does for his base.  But that doesn't mean that McCain can't find campaign staff that can outcompete the Obama ground team.