Promising And Problematic Areas For Iowa Democrats

Democrats in Iowa are feeling good as they head into the 2018 elections, boosted by turnout and registration data from the primary that shows their base energized and involved. The party added over 24,000 new registered Democrats in a month and saw their largest primary turnout in decades.

But the numbers weren’t all positive across the state. Certain counties, including those that saw large shifts to Donald Trump and the Republicans in 2016, didn’t enjoy the same kind of improvements in Democratic momentum. While 38% of registered Democrats turned out to vote in Story County, only 17% showed up in Muscatine County. And while Dallas County saw a 9% one-month jump in their number of registered Democrats, Burlington’s Des Moines County received less than 1% of a bump. (See the full spreadsheet here)

Those results should be informative to Democratic campaigns and the party as they prepare for the general election. No one was going to rely on a blue wave to manifest itself, but the county-level data, including the new registration information, shows both areas that offer opportunities and those that require a lot of work.

We’ll take a look at two key numbers: turnout and percentage increase of registered Democrats. Turnout rates for Democrats in the primary spanned from 50% in Jefferson County to 15% in Buena Vista. The percent of which Democrats increased their registered voter numbers ranged from 9% in Dallas County to -4% in Lyon County (as in, there are 1,143 newly registered Democrats in Dallas County, bringing their total to 13,659, or a 9% increase).

Let’s start off with the good counties for Democrats. Here’s the top 15 sorted by turnout.

And here’s the top 15 sorted by the percentage of newly registered Democrats (it’s not always the same – higher numbers here may mean more independents are coming over to the party):

The hotly-contested state senate primary in the Ottumwa/Fairfield district between Mary Stewart and Ed Malloy catapulted counties like Jefferson and Davis to the top of the turnout list. Wapello County comes in at 25th, which is pretty good when we start to look at other blue-collar communities.

Aside from that local race, Democrats saw some of their best turnouts in the urban and suburban counties that the party has seen gains in under Trump. Linn County came in 16th on the turnout list. That matches the national trends and is good news for House Democrats’ prospects in places like the Des Moines and Cedar Rapids suburbs. It’s also mostly encouraging for the statewide candidates, who will need higher turnout than ever from the Democratic base in large cities to offset Republicans’ advantage elsewhere

There were also many rural counties that did particularly well, most of which are in the 3rd Congressional District where Democrats had their most competitive primary. Democrats even pulled into an essential tie with Republicans for registered voters there; there are now 169,208 registered Democrats and 169,269 registered Republicans in the 3rd District. That’s a very positive sign for Cindy Axne. Her biggest opportunity lies in the suburban vote, but a stronger Democratic performance in the rural counties will help, too.

Overall, Democrats’ received their biggest increase in registered voters in both the 1st and 3rd Districts:

Most of that was thanks to the competitive primaries, but the NextGen organization has also been running a voter registration drive aimed at young people. They’ve reported collecting 1,230 new registration forms in the 1st District and 1,032 in the 3rd.

Now let’s look at the most interesting part: the counties that under-performed. These do very much fit a trend and offer up some warning signs for Democrats. Here’s the bottom 15 counties for turnout in the primary:

And here’s the 15 counties that had the smallest increase (or even a decrease) in newly-registered Democrats:

Both Lyon and Palo Alto had a Republican primary for state senate where the winner essentially takes the seat now held by independent Senator David Johnson, so that likely had an impact there. There’s also many rural Western Iowa counties on this list, but Democrats are used to seeing a steady erosion out there.

The biggest source of concern is in the medium-sized, blue-collar counties that saw very weak turnout in the primary and little increase in registered Democrats. That includes Clinton, Cerro Gordo, Pottawattamie, Muscatine and Des Moines (17th on the list) counties. All of these have similar demographics: mostly white, blue collar and working poor, lower education levels. They also used to be reliably Democratic strongholds (with perhaps the exception of Pottawattamie) that the party could count on a several thousand vote margin before the 2016 flip. (This is why Wapello’s good performance is notable – it was an exception to counties of similar demographics).

A big question for Iowa Democrats is whether the voters who left the party in droves for Trump will start to return to form in 2016. These numbers aren’t very encouraging on that front. With the exception of Dubuque and Allamakee counties, every single county along the Mississippi River had less than 25% turnout for the primary. Scott County continues to badly underperform its urban counterparts, with only a 22% turnout and 4% increase in registered Democrats.

Both the Quad Cities and Council Bluffs seem to suffer from the problem of being on the edge of the state, centered in media markets that cover two different states’ politics. When local voters are less tuned in to Iowa’s Democratic candidates and political scene, it results in lower engagement and turnout.

This is also problematic for certain legislative districts. While Democrats may be favored to pick up house seats in several suburban districts, they still need to grab a handful of pick-ups in the rural and blue-collar seats that were the traditional battlegrounds before 2016. That includes races in Scott and Muscatine counties.

It’s also worrisome for several of the key senate races that Democrats are defending in. Northern Iowa continues to have turnout issues, but Senator Amanda Ragan needs Mason City to perform well to carry SD 27. Jackson County, home to Senator Tod Bowman, didn’t have a lot of Democratic participation in the primary. And hopefully Senator Rita Hart’s addition to the statewide ticket motivates Democrats in Clinton County, which was 3rd-worst for turnout, to vote for her replacement.

Finally, for all the talk that Iowa Democrats like to do about increasing Latino turnout in places like Storm Lake, the numbers never end up corresponding. Buena Vista came in dead last with a 15% turnout.

Of course, numbers from primaries don’t precisely correspond to performance in a general election. But you’d still rather see the Democratic base heavily engaged in areas of the state where you need to win local races or reverse the trend toward Republicans. The overall data from the primary was good news for Democrats, but there’s still plenty of counties that remain a work in progress for a blue wave.

by Pat Rynard
Posted 7/8/18