Iowa Republicans did very well in the election last week. President Trump carried Iowa by just over 8 points. In 2016 he won by about 9 points. Joni Ernst won the U.S. Senate seat by just over 6 points. President Trump carried Warren County by nearly 17 points, compared to 15 points in 2016. He carried Madison County by 34%.
Democrat Cindy Axne won our congressional seat over David Young in District 3, by about 1.5 points. A Libertarian candidate won about 3.5 percent of the vote. It could be that David Young would have won if the Libertarian candidate was not in the race. Of course, we cannot be sure of that, however. Republicans won the 1st and 4th districts. As of this writing Republican Marianette Miller-Meeks leads Rita Hart, in District 2, by a razor-thin margin.
We maintained our margin of 32 Republicans compared to 18 Democrats in the Iowa Senate. In the House we picked up a net of six seats for a total of 59, compared to 41 for the Democrats. One of the new Representatives is Brooke Boden who will represent District 26 in Warren County. Of course, Stan Gustafson handily won re-election in District 25 that includes all of Madison County and most of western Warren County. The old ratio was 53 Republicans to 47 Democrats. This should make it easier to pass some legislation, because with only 53 Republicans, if the Democrats oppose a bill, 3 or 4 Republican House members can
Registered Voters
There were 1,697,102 ballots cast here in Iowa out of 2,243,758 registered voters for a turnout rate of 75.64%. This was the most voters ever for an Iowa election according to Secretary of State Paul Pate. Registered voters include 719,591 Republicans, 699,001 Democrats and 659,488 No Party voters and 17,501 Other.
In Warren County, there are 13,567 Republicans, 11,169 Democrats, 11,088 No Party and 301 Other. In Madison County, there are 4,912 Republicans, 2,874 Democrats, 3,587 No Party and 90 Other. The party registrations of officeholders in both Warren and Madison County have changed a lot over the years. After the 2020 election, next year there will be only 1 Democrat officeholder in Warren County, and 1 Democrat officeholder in Madison County. The rest are all Republicans.
Polling
We should all take note of the poor job most of the polling organizations did when it came to polling for the presidential election. Many polls purported to show Biden winning by double digits. They did the same thing 4 years ago. How do they maintain any credibility? The Economist, Quinnipiac and CNBC had Biden winning by 10 or 11 points in polls released the day before the election. Give credit to the Register’s Iowa poll for being very close to the actual outcome for the Presidential race and the U.S. Senate race in Iowa. They also did very well on the congressional races.
