An
Upper Midwestern state previously considered a battleground and a bellwether state for decades, Iowa voted significantly more Republican than the nation-at-large in both
2016 and
2020 and is now considered a moderately
red state at the federal and state levels. Republican
Donald Trump won the state by a comfortable margin of 8.2% while losing nationally in 2020, despite polls indicating a close race. Biden became the first Democrat to be elected president without winning Iowa since
Jimmy Carter in
1976. Furthermore, during the
2022 midterms, all three statewide incumbent Republicans (Governor
Kim Reynolds, Secretary of Agriculture
Mike Naig, and Secretary of State
Paul Pate) won reelection by more than 18%, two of three statewide incumbent Democrats (28-year incumbent Attorney General
Tom Miller and 40-year incumbent Treasurer
Michael Fitzgerald) lost to Republican challengers, and the remaining incumbent Democrat (four-year incumbent Auditor
Rob Sand) won by fewer than 3,000 votes, or 0.24%. Republicans also
won all four of Iowa's U.S. House seats. Iowa handed Republican
Donald Trump a decisive victory, doing so by a margin of 219,741 votes. This election marks the third consecutive cycle in which Iowa voted for the Republican candidate in a presidential election. Notably, Trump improved his margins in 98 of 99 counties and gained significant support across all demographics, performing better in
suburban,
rural, and
urban areas. Trump became the first Republican to win
Scott County since
Ronald Reagan in
1984. This is the first election since 1968 that Iowa voted to the right of
Alaska, a state that only voted Democratic in 1964. Iowa and
Florida also voted for Trump by over 13% in 2024 after having previously voted twice for Democrat
Barack Obama. == See also ==