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Re: How this onetime battleground state in heartland America turned bright red
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Woke up
Sep 12, 2023, 3:05:03 AM9/12/23
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"1.AAC0832" <AAC...@yahoomail.com> wrote in
news:ssqepo$m2q4$2...@news.freedyn.de:
> Republicans get your knives out and cut some Democrat throats.
Iowa has gone from purple to deep red.
Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa on Friday signed into law a
controversial bill passed earlier this week by the state’s GOP-dominated
legislature that sharply limits abortion.
The bill, which would ban most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, is
the latest example of Iowa Republicans flexing their muscles in a state
that over the past dozen years has transformed from a crucial general
election battleground to solidly red, with the GOP in control of the
governor’s office, both legislative chambers in the statehouse and Iowa’s
entire congressional delegation.
Reynolds has signed laws this year that ban or significantly limit gender
transition treatments for minors, allow families to use taxpayer money
towards private-school tuition and loosen child labor rules in the state,
as the GOP works to turn the onetime swing state into a bastion of
conservatism.
NEW IOWA ABORTION BAN FACING LEGAL BATTLE
"Americans are taking notice as states around the country are looking to
Iowa as a beacon for freedom and opportunity," the governor wrote in a
statement this spring as she touted what she described as an "historic"
legislative session.
It wasn’t that long ago that Democrats were competitive in the state,
controlling the governor’s office for a dozen straight years and one of
the two U.S. Senate seats for three straight decades. But Democrats
haven’t won a gubernatorial election since 2006 or a Senate contest since
2008.
WHO'S IN AND WHO'S ON THE SIDELINES — YOUR GUIDE TO THE 2024 GOP
PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATION RACE
In the race for the White House, former President Barack Obama carried
Iowa by nearly 10 points in 2008 and by six points in 2012. But four years
later, former President Donald Trump captured the Hawkeye State by nine
points in his White House victory. Trump carried Iowa by eight points in
2020 in his re-election defeat.
Last November, the sole remaining Democrat in the state’s congressional
delegation went down to defeat.
"There has been remarkable change in the political makeup of the state,"
veteran Iowa-based Democratic consultant Jeff Link told Fox News.
Link spotlighted that "what has changed the most is there was significant
shift in the counties along the Mississippi River that were traditionally
Democratic strongholds. They were counties that had lots of organized
labor and those are the places that have had the biggest change."
David Kochel, a longtime Republican consultant and veteran of numerous GOP
presidential campaigns in Iowa and nationally, also pointed to "the
migration of White working-class voters from the old Democratic Party
coalition, which included a lot of labor and blue-collar workers."
"As the Democratic Party became more progressive, those White working-
class voters migrated into the Republican Party," added Kochel, a former
Iowa GOP executive director.
Kochel spotlighted Howard County in northeastern Iowa, which he noted "had
the largest swing from Obama and Trump of any county in the country."
"We traded some votes. There were some suburban, moderate, voters that
might have moved a little bit left, but replacing them was a much larger
number of White working-class voters," he added.
Democrats hope that the new abortion law will help boost their chances in
next year’s legislative and congressional elections in Iowa.
But Link argued that Iowa Democrats need "to focus on improving their
voter registration number, which is not something the party has ever done
before. But that is key because you just can’t persuade enough
independents where we are right now to have enough of an impact. So you
literally have to register more Democratic voters."
And he urged that Democrats "need to not only travel to all the counties
in the state, but we need to listen to voters in those places and not just
write them off. I think that’s what’s happened from time to time, and it’s
a strategy that’s a disaster."
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/how-onetime-battleground-state-heartland-
america-turned-bright-red
news:ssqepo$m2q4$2...@news.freedyn.de:
> Republicans get your knives out and cut some Democrat throats.
Iowa has gone from purple to deep red.
Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa on Friday signed into law a
controversial bill passed earlier this week by the state’s GOP-dominated
legislature that sharply limits abortion.
The bill, which would ban most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, is
the latest example of Iowa Republicans flexing their muscles in a state
that over the past dozen years has transformed from a crucial general
election battleground to solidly red, with the GOP in control of the
governor’s office, both legislative chambers in the statehouse and Iowa’s
entire congressional delegation.
Reynolds has signed laws this year that ban or significantly limit gender
transition treatments for minors, allow families to use taxpayer money
towards private-school tuition and loosen child labor rules in the state,
as the GOP works to turn the onetime swing state into a bastion of
conservatism.
NEW IOWA ABORTION BAN FACING LEGAL BATTLE
"Americans are taking notice as states around the country are looking to
Iowa as a beacon for freedom and opportunity," the governor wrote in a
statement this spring as she touted what she described as an "historic"
legislative session.
It wasn’t that long ago that Democrats were competitive in the state,
controlling the governor’s office for a dozen straight years and one of
the two U.S. Senate seats for three straight decades. But Democrats
haven’t won a gubernatorial election since 2006 or a Senate contest since
2008.
WHO'S IN AND WHO'S ON THE SIDELINES — YOUR GUIDE TO THE 2024 GOP
PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATION RACE
In the race for the White House, former President Barack Obama carried
Iowa by nearly 10 points in 2008 and by six points in 2012. But four years
later, former President Donald Trump captured the Hawkeye State by nine
points in his White House victory. Trump carried Iowa by eight points in
2020 in his re-election defeat.
Last November, the sole remaining Democrat in the state’s congressional
delegation went down to defeat.
"There has been remarkable change in the political makeup of the state,"
veteran Iowa-based Democratic consultant Jeff Link told Fox News.
Link spotlighted that "what has changed the most is there was significant
shift in the counties along the Mississippi River that were traditionally
Democratic strongholds. They were counties that had lots of organized
labor and those are the places that have had the biggest change."
David Kochel, a longtime Republican consultant and veteran of numerous GOP
presidential campaigns in Iowa and nationally, also pointed to "the
migration of White working-class voters from the old Democratic Party
coalition, which included a lot of labor and blue-collar workers."
"As the Democratic Party became more progressive, those White working-
class voters migrated into the Republican Party," added Kochel, a former
Iowa GOP executive director.
Kochel spotlighted Howard County in northeastern Iowa, which he noted "had
the largest swing from Obama and Trump of any county in the country."
"We traded some votes. There were some suburban, moderate, voters that
might have moved a little bit left, but replacing them was a much larger
number of White working-class voters," he added.
Democrats hope that the new abortion law will help boost their chances in
next year’s legislative and congressional elections in Iowa.
But Link argued that Iowa Democrats need "to focus on improving their
voter registration number, which is not something the party has ever done
before. But that is key because you just can’t persuade enough
independents where we are right now to have enough of an impact. So you
literally have to register more Democratic voters."
And he urged that Democrats "need to not only travel to all the counties
in the state, but we need to listen to voters in those places and not just
write them off. I think that’s what’s happened from time to time, and it’s
a strategy that’s a disaster."
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/how-onetime-battleground-state-heartland-
america-turned-bright-red
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