Since the end of the 2012 presidential election, it’s been speculated that the easiest state for Republicans to flip from blue to red would be Iowa. Barack Obama carried the state decisively in 2008 and 2012, but the state has a number of factors that make a Republican candidate competitive in 2016.
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Which Party Will Win the General Election Iowa Electoral College Vote?
Democratic Party -106
Republican Party -114
WHAT HAS CHANGED WITH IOWA?
It’s somewhat surprising how much Iowa has changed over the past four years. Democrats have carried the state in six of the last seven elections and Obama won it handily in both 2008 and 2012. In 2008, he finished 9.5 percent ahead of John McCain and in 2012 that number shrunk to 5.8 percent.
Iowa has always been a quirky state with a lot of Midwest tendencies, but a surprising number of evangelicals as well. Those evangelical voters are a big reason why Donald Trump has a chance and although he lost the state to Ted Cruz in the Republican Primary, they are supporting him strongly against Hillary Clinton.
Like the rest of the nation, Trump has a great chance in Iowa because of his support among non-college educated voters. Iowa has more non-college educated voters than the national average and large swathes of these voters are aligning themselves with Trump. It will be interesting to see if this group will be enough to tip the balance in Trump’s favor both here and nationally.
EARLY VOTING RESULTS
In 2012, around 1.6 million Iowans cast a ballot to determine the next POTUS. Of those, around 380,000 of them had already submitted their vote at this point in the process. That number is much larger than this year, where about 320,000 people have decided to cast their ballots so far.
The lower turnout has especially affected Democrats. Almost 30,000 fewer Democrats have voted early than at this point in 2012 while just 15,000 fewer Republicans have voted early. These numbers are a little concerning considering it was Clinton’s extensive ground campaigning that got her the win over Bernie Sanders in the Iowa Democratic Primary. If they can’t come close to matching Obama’s turnout numbers, the Democrats are in serious trouble of losing Iowa in this election.
NON-PARTY AFFILIATED VOTERS
This election is noteworthy for all the undecided voters still out there, but few states have as many undecided and non-party affiliated voters as Iowa. That has meant that both Clinton and Trump have pushed hard to win this state, thinking that they can tip the balance with the right combination of campaigning and advertising.
According to a recent study performed by Loras College, Clinton is doing better than Trump among these voters. The study found that people who identified as Independents or Unregistered were more likely to vote for Clinton than Trump by a margin of 51 percent to 42 percent. It’s unsurprising that Independents seem to favor Clinton, but if that number is correct than she could be on her way to a much better performance than many expect.
THE BET
Iowa has the most even odds of any state with available betting right now and everything points to the state being a toss-up. Both candidates have seen their fortunes rise and fall in this state, but right now FiveThirtyEight has Clinton with a 52.8 percent chance to win Iowa despite the most recent polls being in favor of Trump.
Although Clinton is the favorite right now per FiveThirtyEight, Trump is the better play. In the days to come more Republicans will return to the party and cast a reluctant vote for him and while that won’t be enough for him to win nationally, he can win Iowa.
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