If you follow national politics, you are aware Iowa is not the swing state it used to be. In the time since the Obama-Biden ticket carried it by six points in 2012, Iowa has turned in a sharply Republican direction.
Trump carried it twice. Republican Sen. Joni Ernst replaced longtime liberal Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin, then won reelection by a surprising margin in 2020. Democrats lost their toe-hold in government with a gradual collapse in the state Senate last decade, thus turning Iowa into a Republican trifecta state. They failed to retake the governor’s mansion in the Democratic wave year of 2018, and no Democrat has been elected governor since one-termer Chet Culver won in 2006.
Although three out of the seven elected statewide line officers are still Democrats, two of those (the 77-year-old attorney general and the treasurer, who turns 70 later this year) have held office since the Carter and Reagan administrations, respectively. They are holdovers, not the party’s future.
So yes, it’s getting redder — the same way Colorado and Virginia have been getting bluer.
Even so, the new Des Moines Register poll has to be absolutely terrifying for Democrats, not only in Iowa but everywhere:
That’s a 12 percentage point drop in approval from June, the last time the question was asked. Biden’s disapproval numbers jumped by 10 points during the same period. In June, 43% approved and 52% disapproved.
Biden’s job approval has not been in net positive territory in Iowa since March, when 47% of Iowans approved of his performance and 44% disapproved.
You read that right — 31% approval. That’s lower than any president since George W. Bush, who hit 25% approval in September 2008.
No, this isn’t beet-red Idaho — it’s Iowa, a state that Barack Obama carried twice without trouble.
Independents in Iowa now disapprove of Biden, two to one. The catalyst for this is surely no surprise. The news about the Biden administration’s neglectful, panicked exit from Afghanistan has reached the end consumer. Only 22% of Iowans approve of his handling of Afghanistan, compared to 69% who disapprove. Only 36% approve of his handling of COVID-19.
Ann Seltzer’s Des Moines Register poll is known for delivering surprising but accurate results, as when it predicted Joni Ernst’s easy victory in 2014. Perhaps Democrats should be fearful of what other national polls aren’t showing about the various states and (still-to-be-drawn) districts they will have to win in 2022 to keep power in Congress.
