Tuesday, January 23, 2024

GET ME REWRITE: Chickasaw County goes full MAGA

 
The Democratic presidential candidate won Chickasaw County from 1988 to 2012, a string of 7 elections.  

In 2008, Barack Obama outpolled John McCain by 20.8 percentage points.  Eight years later, Donald Trump flipped the county by a winning margin of 23 percentage points against Hillary Clinton.  In 2020, he beat Joe Biden by 31.3 percentage points.  

In 2016, Donald Trump outpolled Hillary Clinton by 37.6 percentage points.  Four years later, he boosted his winning margin to 43.3 percentage points against Joe Biden.

Source:  Wikipedia
3rd-party candidates received 24.1% of vote in 1992, 12.8% of vote in 1996, 6.6% in 2016;
(Alabama segregationist George Wallace received 4.3% of the vote in 1968)

No surprise that Trump did better here in the Iowa caucuses than he did statewide (51%).

Iowa caucus results:  New York Times

Trump received 4,308 votes in Chickasaw County in 2020.  As for being "a model of participatory democracy"?  NO!

Washington Post, 12/9/2024
But increasingly, Verna saw things differently from most of her longtime neighbors in Chickasaw County, which had experienced one of the most dramatic political pivots in the country. The transformation had been swift. In the 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama won 60 percent of voters in this onetime Democratic stronghold; by 2016, Donald Trump won 58 percent of voters and then 65 percent in 2020. The political era that followed was one of grievance, and tribalism, and suspicion, and rage. 
Rage wasn’t Verna’s style. She believed in decency. She believed in nurturing community, not sowing division.

Like many other rural Iowa counties, Chickasaw County's population peaked more than 100 years ago.  It is now down 30% from its 1900 peak.  The county now has fewer residents now than it did in the late 1870s. 

Wikipedia

Demographically, residents of Lucas County are overwhelmingly white, have significantly lower levels of education, and are older compared to statewide and national averages.



Source:  U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts

% of population 25 and older with bachelor's degree:
  • 18.6% - Chickasaw County
  • 38.2% - Iowa
  • 33.7% - U.S.
% of population 65 and older:
  • 22.9% - Chickasaw County
  • 17.4% - Iowa
  • 16.8% - U.S.

Overwhelmingly white, rural, lower level of education, older.  

It's a recipe for MAGA success.

Related posts:
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