Having spent my high school years in Des Moines, I follow Iowa’s fortunes, and especially its politics, far more closely than I probably should. I began writing op-eds for the Des Moines Register when I was in graduate school, and I’ve completed RAGBRAI — the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa — twice and hope to do so again next summer.
Until recently, Iowa had a strong progressive tradition in politics, dating to the nineteenth century. Josiah Bushnell Grinnell, the abolitionist Congregational minister to whom Horace Greeley issued his famous advice, “Go west, young man, go west,” settled in eastern Iowa, represented the state in Congress and established the college that now bears his name.
Henry A. Wallace, one of Franklin Roosevelt’s vice presidents, ran for president on the Progressive Party ticket in 1948. Harold E. Hughes, governor and senator, advocated for civil rights and opposed the War in Vietnam.
More recently, John Culver, Dick Clark and Tom Harkin carried on the progressive tradition in Congress, and the Iowa precinct caucuses propelled Barack Obama to the Democratic nomination for president in 2008. Obama carried the state in both 2008 and 2012.
Throughout that history, Iowa maintained a long tradition of agricultural cooperative movements and support for family farms. The state was a leader in renewable energy and the third state to legalize same-sex marriage. Iowa desegregated its public schools decades before the Brown v. Board of Education ruling of 1954, and public education in
Iowa (I am a proud alumnus) once ranked among the best in the nation. What happened?
The state began turning from purple to red about a decade ago. After five terms in the Senate, Harkin retired in 2014; the Democratic nominee to succeed him lost to a Republican whose claim to fame was her ability to castrate hogs.
Donald Trump alighted for the Iowa precinct caucuses and famously declared in Sioux Center, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?”
When Trump appointed Iowa’s governor as ambassador to China in 2017, the lieutenant governor, Kim Reynolds, became Iowa’s first female governor.
I had high hopes at the time, but those hopes quickly faded. “Covid Kim,” as she became known for her mishandling of the coronavirus, quickly worked with Republican supermajorities in the legislature to dismantle civil rights protections and impose a ban on abortions after six weeks.
The Republicans also decided that public education in Iowa, from grammar school to the universities, was “woke.” At Reynolds’s behest, the legislature passed a school voucher bill that annually redirects more than $300 million in taxpayer funds away from public schools toward private (including religious) schools. Most of that money, the state auditor found, went into the pockets of families who were already sending their children to private schools.
Iowa public education ranked near the top when the Republicans took control of state government. Now it’s middle-of-the-pack at best.
At the university level, the legislature mandated that students at the University of Iowa enroll in two civics courses offered by a new Center for Intellectual Freedom. Despite $2 million in taxpayer funds, of which $438,000 is allocated for the director’s salary and benefits, only 21 students signed up.
Members of Iowa’s all-Republican delegation in Washington, led by Chuck Grassley, have become Trump’s reliable enablers. And who can forget Grassley’s collusion with Mitch McConnell to hand Trump three Supreme Court justices?
Back in Iowa, cancer rates are up, likely due at least in part to relaxed environmental regulations, and rural health clinics are closing. Iowa ranks 44th nationally in physicians per capita and last in OB-GYNs per capita.
As we head into the midterm elections, there’s some evidence that Iowans have grown tired of one-party rule. At least two of the state’s congressional seats are contested, and Josh Turek, the Democratic nominee for Senate, is running even with his Republican opponent.
Rob Sand, the state auditor who exposed the chicanery behind the school voucher program and who has consistently sought to hold Reynolds accountable, is the Democratic nominee for governor. Sand’s boyish insouciance has been attracting crowds as he campaigns tirelessly across the state, arguing that it’s time to rotate the crops.
His Republican opponent spent most of his time in Kansas last year and commutes between his homes — one in Kansas and a second in Iowa — by private airplane. He promises to “be in Iowa as much as humanly possible” if elected.
One-party rule, left or right, is seldom a good idea. A course correction may be brewing in one of our reddest states.
Randall Balmer teaches at Dartmouth College.