I am going to attempt to explain wtf is happening with Iowa politics since apparently we have the closest races and the rest of the country seems to not know how to deal with this. I grew up in very rural Iowa on a tree farm/forest but left at 18 to study in Minnesota and California. Other than education I spent my whole adult life abroad and had residency permits in 9 countries. I visited 76. We used to be a swing state with some strong soldily blue areas (I was in one). We are now MAGA country. Other states are red states but Iowa swung harder and faster to the right than perhaps any other. Voting Republican has screwed over the whole state. This isn't even controversial. Our cancer rate is sky high due to lack of environmental regulation and pollutants in our drinking water, our ag industry and farmers are screwed by cuts to USAID and tariffs, and our manufacting industry screwed by the steel tariffs. Our rural schools are getting way worse and our rural hospitals are closing and people here lost MedicAid coverage. We are all getting screwed by corporations buying rental properties, trailer parks, and farmland. So people should just vote Democrat, right? Republican policies are screwing people over. That is what Des Moines, Iowa City, and Cedar Rapids do every year. Those are the cities and they vote blue. Why are the rural areas not doing that? If you talk to people here who keep voting Republican they will tell you two things: Democrats are way too crazy, weird, and have different values and also they look down on us. This probably sounds odd of petty to some people but look at who the audience is: 1. Rural Iowa is a very sex-segregated society. Men and women do extremely different jobs. People are pretty traditional about that and only now, in 2026, are women starting to enter the trades. I don't know of a single woman who ever took over the family farm herself. 2. People don't go places. They rarely travel. It is HARD for farmers to get away from their farms. It's not uncommon to meet people who have never left the Upper Midwest region. 3. People are happy. They don't necessarily WANT to go places and see a different life. Their extended families are extremely close. Iowa has the second largest average size of weddings, only beat by the Mormons in Utah. People LIKE the lives they are living. They like the food they grown themselves. They like hunting and fishing and drinking a beer. What more could you want? 4. Women are way more likely to leave than men are. All the boys I grew up with stayed unless they joined the military. Why leave if you're taking over the family farm, family business, or can get a good job at a factory? There has always been a bigger need for welders than the local supply. For girls there are far fewer opportunities and we are way more likely to go to college and leave the state. There is a huge brain drain issue where the top achievers academically leave the state as we just don't have some opportunities here. 5. The rural areas are extremely white but not just white they're very insular. Everyone is related to each other somehow and everyone knows each other's business. You will still find people extremely proud of whatever European heritage they have and we still have big festivals where the Dutch, German, or Irish descendants bust out their traditions. My hometown used to have separate churches for the Irish and German Catholics. People came here 6 generations ago and didn't leave. We have our own greeting when we drive past each other on highways we lift the index and middle finger of our right hand from the driving wheel. 6. We have EXTREMELY high civic engagment. Very common to join the National Guard. Pretty much everyone is involved with some kind of community club. People know their neighbors and are still very involved in churches. Local bars in small towns are still packed on weekends and there are tiny towns that draw hundreds or thousands of people for tractor pulls, car shows, or auctions. 7. It's common to meet people who have not done what other people would consider common life experiences. Maybe never had a friend who isn't white, never been on a plane, never been to a major city, never left the USA, never seen the ocean. 8. We are extremely proud of our work ethic and are incredibly self-sufficient. It's common to grow your own food, fix your own clothes, fix your own cars, and do everything yourself. This is how rural areas are. No one else is around to help you so you'll figure it out. Especially for men here working hard and fixing things is basically in the DNA. 9. It's a point of pride to not show off. We have parties in our garages where people bring their lawn chairs and hang out in the garage. People are very proud of their couponing and efficient shopping. People generally aren't into fashion and they have farm jeans and church jeans. 10. We are gettin decimated by cancer. The cancer rates are highest in rural areas and on farms. It's taking out a lot of the community leaders and taking them fast. On my school bus route every single house has someone who has cancer or died of it. This is the audience the Democrats need to persuade and they have done a terrible job doing it. People are traditional, haven't experienced many things other people did, but are very proud and very happy with who they are. For the Democrats to win they need to tell people that they are not trying to change you. The message rural people are getting from Democrats is you are backwards, you are bigots, you are not sophisticated, and we are better than you are. I'm sure someone will respond to this with some point about how they really are bigots but THAT IS NOT THE POINT because to persuade people to your side they have to FEEL they can be on the same side as you and if you tell them that everything is wrong about them when they are overall happy with their lives then they will just say go fuck yourselves, which is what a lot of them did. No one wants to be looked down on. No one wants to be treated like they are not equals. Every person I know who is from a rural area and did what I did and went to an elite school got the same feeling that people look down on us. If it offends us when we are the ones who left then of course it will offend people who stayed. The Democrats have the right policies but have completely failed to relate to their audience in Iowa.