Clinton
|
Trump
||
General
Election
Visits
The Hawkeye State went Democratic
in
2008 and 2012,
but Republicans fared well in 2014, re-electing Gov. Branstad, and
electing Sen. Ernst and Reps. Blum and Young. Voter registration
statistics show a trend toward Republicans.
Voter Registration (Active) for
November General Election >
|
Dem.
|
Rep.
|
No
Party
|
Total
|
2016
|
629,081 (31.51%)
|
662,167 (33.17%)
|
694,005 (34.77%)
|
1,996,153
|
2014
|
602,048 (31.08%)
|
620,353 (32.02%)
|
709,447 (36.62%)
|
1,937,294
|
2012
|
621,401 (32.08%)
|
626,508 (32.35%)
|
686,649 (35.45%)
|
1,936,901
|
2010
|
663,215 (33.41%)
|
618,614 (31.16%)
|
701,320 (35.33%)
|
1,984,995
|
2008
|
698,839 (34.87%)
|
592,397 (29.56%)
|
711,705 (35.52%)
|
2,003,901
|
note: does not show other
(which is less than 1-percent)
Iowa voters were
quite familiar with the two major candidates from their
caucus campaigns. Recall that
Donald Trump finished a surprising first ahead of Ted Cruz while the
Democrats had "an historically close result" on caucus night.
Although the
media focus shifted elsewhere after the Feb. 1 caucuses, on the
Democratic side competition for delegates between the Clinton and
Sanders camps continued to the State Convention on June 18. There
were still tensions between the two sides at the
Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. The drawn-out
process very likely used up some of the energy of Clinton volunteers,
and the Democratic campaign was not able to turn its ful attention to
the general
election until July. Nonetheless through phone calls, in person
contacts, and texts the campaign reported 1.3 million conversations
with Iowa voters between June and Labor Day.
The Republican ticket spent
significantly more time in state than the Democrats (Trump and Pence
made a total of 16 visits totalling 18 days compared to 6 visits and 7
days for Clinton and Kaine). Meanwhile, as elsewhere, Clinton
swept
up newspaper endorsements (+).
The
Democratic
campaign
was
relatively small compared to
operations in other
battleground states, but by Election Day it
pointed to "an unrivaled organization that
is now primed
to
deliver the margin of victory (+)."
Although the total number of votes tallied in the presidential
contest was
very close to that in 2012 (just a tad lower at 1,566,031 votes
compared to 1,582,180) the turnout profile was markedly
different. Some 212,000 voters who voted in 2012 did not vote in
2016, many of them Democrats, while 244,000 voters turnout out in 2016
who had not voted in 2012, and many of these supported Trump. The
result was 9.41 percentage point margin for Trump compared to Obama's
5.81 percentage point margin over Romney in 2012. The fact that
Clinton managed to carry just six of 99 counties was somewhat
astounding.