Steve King calls his loss in Tuesday’s primary a victory in the “effort to push out the strongest voice for full-spectrum constitutional, Christian conservatism.”
But the election results tell a different story. It was, to use a slightly dated term, the religious right who threw King out in favor of state Sen. Randy Feenstra.
Analysts liked to call King “archconservative,” and he was often portrayed as a totem of the religious right. King enjoyed that association as much as his media critics did.
But it wasn’t true. The upper-left corner of Iowa’s 4th Congressional District shows why. King’s defeat at the hands of a pro-life, Christian conservative challenger and pro-life, Christian conservative electorate highlights two different types of conservatism.
Sioux County was King’s worst county in Tuesday’s primary. Feenstra beat King 81% to 15% there. His 5,285-vote margin there was two-thirds of Feenstra’s statewide margin.
Sioux County is Iowa’s most Republican county by almost any measure. As a result, King always did well there in all his past elections, and it was Donald Trump’s best county in Iowa in the 2016 general election.
But here’s a telling detail: Sioux County was also Trump’s worst county in the 2016 Iowa caucuses. Trump finished fourth in the Iowa caucuses in Sioux County, with 11% of the vote. He didn’t win a single precinct.
Sioux County rejected Trump in the 2016 caucuses and King the first time he faced a real primary for the same reason. It isn’t because Sioux County Republicans are moderate. It’s because Sioux County is so conservative in the way the word was used before Trump changed its meaning.
To give you an idea, back in 2012, Sioux County and neighboring Lyon County were Rick Santorum’s best counties as he edged out Mitt Romney in the Iowa caucuses. Santorum pulled in 49% across those two counties, two of just three counties where he was above 40%. Back in 2008, Mike Huckabee also dominated in Sioux, Lyon, and O’Brien counties, posting about 50% there compared to 35% statewide.
According to the Association of Religious Data Archives, Sioux County has the highest portion of evangelicals in the state, and its rate of mainline Protestants is even higher.
Look at any data that measures the strength of family, faith, and work, and Sioux County tops the list of Iowa counties. Neighboring Lyon and O’Brien are very similar, and they also voted overwhelmingly for Feenstra and against King.
Sioux and Lyon counties are also the two counties with the highest portion of residents with Dutch ancestry. That’s not a coincidence: What makes these communities so strong are the Dutch reformed churches and affiliated institutions.
Feenstra is Dutch. He represents Sioux County in the legislature, and so it’s not surprising he was strongest here. But that the challenge to King emerged from this Dutch, churchgoing, family friendly corner of the state tells you something about the different types of politics that get called “far-right” or “archconservative.”
King was no squish on abortion. He had a pro-life record and was mostly conservative on economic issues with some farm-area and Trumpian exceptions. But he was most widely known for his strident anti-immigration views, and he eventually got tossed overboard for his proximity to racist groups and racist ideas.
If strident on immigration and racially caustic sounds familiar, it’s because King was a Trumpian conservative probably even before Trump. But some of you may be old enough to remember when that wasn’t the only type of conservative.
The Dutch Reformed churches tend to be very conservative on marriage and abortion, and, in a Christian way, very welcoming to refugees. Love of neighbor is a higher good than nationalism — or than owning the libs. All of these make Trump and King’s style and priorities out of whack with the Christian conservative voters of northwest Iowa.
I wrote about the Dutch in Iowa in my book and when I reported from there in January.
In much of the United States, particularly in the South, Christian conservatives have apparently embraced Trumpian conservatism more fully. There’s something about the Dutch Reformed churches that build stronger communities and thus embraces a different type of conservatism.
