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Trump only leading Harris by single digits in Iowa's reddest congressional district [1]

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Date: 2024-11-04  

Most of us are still digesting the final Iowa Poll of the 2024 cycle. By now, most of us know that it has Kamala Harris leading Donald Trump 49-46—a margin that threw even the most optimistic Democratic observers for a loop. After all, virtually no one believed Iowa was anything other than an automatic six-vote deposit in Trump’s Electoral College account.

When I saw this, I knew immediately that at least two of the four members of Iowa’s all-Republican congressional delegation were in deep trouble. Well, I was right. On Sunday morning, The Des Moines Register, who has long commissioned the poll conducted by Ann Selzer, revealed that voters in Iowa’s two most competitive districts, the Quad Cities/Iowa City-based IA-01 and Des Moines-based IA-03, prefer a Democrat to a Republican. However, the biggest shocker comes from the reddest district in the state, IA-04 in the west. Trump only leads Harris by nine points—well below what you would expect a Republican to get in this district. If this margin holds, it’s distinctly possible that Iowa could potentially flip back to the Democrats.

For those who don’t remember, IA-04 was the balliwick of one of the most odious members of the House, Steve King. His open and unashamed white nationalism almost got him capsized in the 2018 Democratic wave. King had so alienated his Republican colleagues that the National Republican Congressional Committee refused to come to his rescue (diaried here) even though he was getting destroyed in fundraising by Democratic challenger J. D. Scholten. He only survived the 2018 wave because Gov. Kim Reynolds ran up 61 percent of the vote in her bid for a full term.

King was promptly turfed out in the 2020 primary by state senator Randy Feenstra. The district reverted to form in the general election, with Feenstra routing Scholten 62-35. With King gone, that district probably won’t be on the board for the foreseeable future. Indeed, Feenstra appears well on his way to a third term, leading Democratic challenger Ryan Melton 53-37.

That’s why it threw me for a loop to see that Trump’s stocks had tailed off—and bigly—in this district. How bigly? He only leads Harris 50-41. As disheartening as that may be, consider that Trump won this district 61-33 in 2016 and 62-36 in 2020. That would have been more than enough to carry Iowa even if the state’s four other districts hadn’t all barely gone for him. Plus, as I mentioned earlier, Reynolds was able to eke out a narrow win in 2018 by going gangbusters in this district. When a Republican wins Iowa, everything west of Des Moines is coated red.

There’s something else to consider. This area is deeply, deeply, deeply fundified—a big reason why a lot of the people here have voted Republican for almost all of their lives. Indeed, the only substantive difference between the reddest parts of this district and some of the reddest parts of the South is the accents. For those who don’t recall, in 2016 Trump came to a Christian college in this district and went a long way toward persuading the religious right to make what amounted to a Faustian deal with him. He told the audience that if he were president, “Christianity would have power.” In the same breath, he claimed he wouldn’t lose any support even if he turned Fifth Avenue into a bloodbath. But according to Elizabeth Dias of The New York Times, that speech convinced Trump that even if he was a bully, he was “the bully on their side.” If any Democratic presidential candidate regardless of skin color—especially a Democrat from the Bay Area—were to even sniff 40 percent in this district, that’s a BFD.

To be sure, the news that the two most vulnerable Republicans in Iowa are in big trouble ought to warm the cockles of our hearts. In IA-01, two-term incumbent Mariannette Miller-Meeks is absolutely tanking. She led her Democratic challenger, former state representative Christina Bohannon, by 12 in June. Now she’s trailing 53-37. In IA-03, freshman Zach Nunn is tanking almost as fast. He trails Democratic challenger Lanon Baccam 48-41 after leading him by eight as late as September. Both seats have Cook PVIs of R+3, and if either or both of them flip the House has likely gone Democratic.

But we should really be watching how Trump does in western Iowa to see how things are going nationally. By all rights, Trump should be leading Harris by 15-20 points in this district, and running up close to his 2016 and 2020 margins. With the Iowa Poll finding that Trump is getting boatraced in IA-01, practically tied with Harris in Cedar Rapids-based IA-02, and just barely behind Harris in IA-03, he pretty much has to run the table in the west in order to keep Iowa red. If Harris does better than expected in this district, at the very least it will keep Trump’s margin here in the low single digits—which would be enough by itself to indicate she’s having a good night nationally. At best, of course, if she keeps her deficits in the west low enough to carry Iowa, she wins the White House.

The irony here is unbelievable. It was this very district that may have put Trump on the path to putting the religious right firmly in his corner—the only reason he’s still standing. And now it seems he’s lost enough support in this district to potentially put Trumpism on life support.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/11/4/2282664/-Trump-only-leading-Harris-by-single-digits-in-Iowa-s-reddest-congressional-district?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web

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