What a relief! The torrent of malicious TV ads faded to black with the election. Kim Reynolds will not be governor; Democrat Rob Sand will be. Josh Turek will help put a check on President Trump as part of a solid Democratic Senate majority. House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries claims history as the first Black to wield the gavel; Iowa sends a split delegation as Democrats flipped three of the four congressional districts to blue.
A big blue wave of frustration washed across America, including the Trumpian Midwest and Great Plains. It was a repudiation of the Iran War, trade wars and indiscriminate tariffs, and higher costs especially for food, housing and health care.
What a stunning turn in just a year, thanks largely to Trump’s war of choice. His unpopularity sunk the GOP. Despite holding a huge registration advantage, Republicans took a drubbing in Iowa, where diesel price increases are felt most acutely. Republicans lost control of the US Senate on their turf — even in Texas, South Carolina and Kansas. Here, diesel prices shot up more than 70% because of the war alongside fertilizer costs. Voters said in exit polls that they were angry with Trump. Seven in 10 voters said that Congress had not done enough to stand up to Trump.
Unfortunately, Trump remains president as an incoherent and dangerous lame duck. He may try to deny the results but the courts started to turn against him before the election. The president should listen to Congress, stop the war in Iran immediately, and rescind his blanket tariffs against our best trading partners. There is no way to bluster out of this public verdict. Trump asked voters to make believe he was on the ballot. He got trounced. He won’t change. Democrats must stop him from his worst instincts but not waste time on fruitless indictments and endless hearings. The prosecution can have its day in court when he is escorted from the White House.
This whole ordeal of MAGA Reincarnate, combined with the snarkiness and cynicism of Gov. Reynolds and Attorney General Brenna Bird, was enough to paint Iowa purple again. As auditor, Sand was the only statewide elected Democrat. As governor, he will be joined by Democrat Nate Willems as attorney general and Taylor Wettach as state auditor. Bird has been a reliable zealot for the right wing, and we will be better off without her services. Republicans will occupy the offices of Secretary of State, Secretary of Agriculture and Treasurer. Our friend Chris Jones put up a good fight on behalf of clean water and lost to incumbent Mike Naig. Jones actually won by elevating the issue into the senate, governor and attorney general races. Jones will remain a prominent advocate for change, and will help hold feet to the fire for water you can safely drink and air you can breathe.
Democrats picked up a few seats in the legislature but not enough to gain control. Republican legislative leaders should read the room and realize they must work with Sand on clean air and water, on strengthening public education and on curing chronic budget deficits. Republicans should put a damper on the culture fires — the public is fed up, clearly, with juvenile antics. Iowa voted for shared government that gets things done. That was Sand’s plain message.
Buena Vista County voted Republican as usual. Democrats did not field enough local candidates and did not reach out to the immigrant community in a meaningful way. We could have a two-party system in rural Iowa, but only one party is really trying. Even in a wave election Sand could not carry BV with thousands of Latinos and a college.
Iowans showed their conservative stripe in affirming a constitutional amendment to require a two-thirds vote of the legislature to increase income taxes. Watch out for further increases in the sales tax and steep increases in fees. With those deficits looming, legislators might roll with Sand and legalize marijuana for the tax revenue. Schools will have a difficult time with funding.
We’re thrilled that Sand may be able to stifle some of the acrimony so rampant in our politics. So far, he has talked pretty bipartisan and centrist. If Republicans know what’s good for them, they will meet him halfway. The statewide election screams for moderation. They should pay special attention as Sand attempts to expand health care access — this was a major issue across the state and the nation. The work will become more urgent with imminent changes in Medicaid and disappearing subsidies on health care exchanges. The public is demanding fairness and help. They know they are getting choked by corporate health systems. Iowa needs to figure out how to deliver relief to rural heath deserts.
Iowa is part of a rural rejection of Trump’s economic quackery. Voters in exit polls said the most important issue behind the economy is the state of democracy. Trump is taking a wrecking ball to the Bill of Rights in the absence of congressional oversight. Those days are over. Americans stood up for freedom. They demanded a check on authoritarian moves. They want fiscal sanity. They have had enough of the bullying and terror. Two-party democracy has returned to Washington just in the nick of time.
Polls have their limits. They do not predict a week out who will win. Polls can give us insights on what the public thinks at a given point in time. In Iowa, polls suggest a chronic coolness if not hostility to immigrants. Donald Trump did awfully well by Iowa with bald bigotry. Steve King and Kim Reynolds made a living ginning up fears over a border that is a two-day drive from here. Way back when, Gov. Tom Vilsack suggested we needed more immigrants in rural Iowa but dropped that idea when a poll showed that 58% of voters disagreed.
The New York Times/Siena poll reported Monday that Iowa voters favored Republican senate candidate Ashley Hinson on the immigration issue by five percent more than her Democratic opponent Josh Turek. That is to suggest that Iowans favor mass deportation. At least, they prefer clamping down. It was the only issue which voters thought the Republican would manage better than the Democrat.
Most of us understand that immigrants take the lowliest jobs in agriculture. Dairy and meatpacking cannot operate without them. If you think food prices are high now, subtract immigrants from the equation and watch meat prices skyrocket. Still, roughly half of us prefer that Brown people were not here — because that is and always has been the Trump position. Trump campaigned on deporting all undocumented immigrants, not just the father-rapers and cat-eaters. Iowans heard him and voted three times to make him president.
This has always struck as strange. Buena Vista County is full of Germans, Danes and Swedes to go along with the Latinos and Asians. Immigrants assumed control of Iowa after the Native people were vanquished. We’re not sure when they turned against other immigrants. After World War I, when hatred of Germans was so high? After World War II? We welcomed Southeast Asians after the Vietnam War but that somehow curdled. We remember people in Storm Lake calling Lao people “gooks” and resenting them for living two or three families to a house. Their only crime was introducing us to better food and building a Buddhist temple. Asians look different. So do Latinos. It is easier to look down on them if you think you do not need them.
The TV ads have something to do with it. They cement our prejudice. They portray immigrants as criminals, not dairy parlor hands. It was a steady stream. Views get hardened. Enough that you can accept the fact that ICE agents will shoot some people here and there to get a tough job done, starting with US citizens. That is the Trump position, which is preferred by the heirs to immigrants in Iowa. We still wonder how you get the cows milked after we deport all the help, or what Storm Lake will look like If they could get rid of all the undocumented. Meatpacking would not function. What will we do with all that corn? Be careful what you wish for.
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