Is Iowa Readying to Reject the GOP?

So much attention has been paid over the summer to high-stakes Senate races in states like Texas and Maine that it’s easy to forget that the entire country will be voting during the November midterms for a whole slate of federal and statewide offices. And if primaries can be properly interpreted as omens of the November to come – and I believe they can – then a dark message is emerging from the quiet cornfields of Iowa, where the GOP faces the threat of being wiped out nearly wholesale in a state that voted solidly for Donald Trump in three straight presidential cycles. A Senate seat, the governor’s mansion, and all four congressional districts are up for election this year, and Democrats — long pushed to the side in a state that turned hard on the Obama/Clinton legacy in 2016 — look like they could win nearly all of them.

Far too many out there seem not to want to believe this. In my experience, Trump partisans believe that Iowa is now permanently “MAGA country,” and that ever since Ann Selzer embarrassed herself by predicting a competitive presidential race in 2024 there’s no need to even think too hard about how the state’s voters might be reacting to the economy in 2026. Trump himself has certainly governed that way — as if he can bank on the loyalty of an electorate that has clearly swung right over the last decade.

JB

About the Author

Jeffrey Blehar

Jeffrey Blehar is a National Review staff writer living in Chicago. He is also the co-host of National Review’s Political Beats podcast, which explores the great music of the modern era with guests from the political world happy to find something non-political to talk about.

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So much attention has been paid over the summer to high-stakes Senate races in states like Texas and Maine that it’s easy to forget that the entire country will be voting during the November midterms for a whole slate of federal and statewide offices. And if primaries can be properly interpreted as omens of the November to come – and I believe they can – then a dark message is emerging from the quiet cornfields of Iowa, where the GOP faces the threat of being wiped out nearly wholesale in a state that voted solidly for Donald Trump in three straight presidential cycles. A Senate seat, the governor’s mansion, and all four congressional districts are up for election this year, and Democrats — long pushed to the side in a state that turned hard on the Obama/Clinton legacy in 2016 — look like they could win nearly all of them.

Far too many out there seem not to want to believe this. In my experience, Trump partisans believe that Iowa is now permanently “MAGA country,” and that ever since Ann Selzer embarrassed herself by predicting a competitive presidential race in 2024 there’s no need to even think too hard about how the state’s voters might be reacting to the economy in 2026. Trump himself has certainly governed that way — as if he can bank on the loyalty of an electorate that has clearly swung right over the last decade.

JB

About the Author

Jeffrey Blehar

Jeffrey Blehar is a National Review staff writer living in Chicago. He is also the co-host of National Review’s Political Beats podcast, which explores the great music of the modern era with guests from the political world happy to find something non-political to talk about.