‘Bout this time of year out here, we look for early signs of what the harvest will bring. Same with politics, where the early caucus and primary results will often foretell the fall general election “harvest”. While watching the primary results scroll in last night I kept clicking on several rural counties for results. I was elated, and worried… And please read on as I explain why.
Iowa was our first bellwether caucus, and I wish I could find results broken down by congressional district, especially the 4th, which is dang near half rural. Heck, the Iowa Democratic Party don’t even want to give statewide results, other than delegate counts. So I looked at the rural top couple tiers of counties as I’m familiar with them from previous campaigns. They followed the historic trends with near equal democratic and republican turnouts in the east and central areas, but out west in the “holy lands”, OMG! Lyon and Sioux counties, hard up against the South Dakota border, had 5 to 10 times the turnout in republican caucuses than democrat’s… These are red counties, but usually not that red!
That’s just half the story, ‘cause after last night we can pretty well predict that the nominees will be Hillary and Trump… Unless the republican establishment trips up Trump, which may turn off more voters that having Trump on the ballot. Cruz dominated in the “holy lands” of northwest Iowa and split most of the rest of the top tiers of counties with Trump, while Hillary and Bernie pretty well tied. Given that polling shows that less than half of the other republicans candidate’s backers would shift their support to Trump but better than 80% of Bernie’s supporters will back Hillary if it comes to that, comparing Hillary’s and Trump’s vote totals is instructive. Comparing their vote totals shows Trump beating Hillary by a landslide in northwestern Iowa, tying in north central Iowa, and Hillary leading in northeast Iowa. Giving Hillary 80% of Bernie’s vote and Trump 50% of his caucus opponent’s results in Hillary beating Trump across most of northern Iowa except for the aforementioned northwestern counties. Survey USA has broken out their polling data by region in Iowa, but it’s 4 months old now and was all over the map anyway, sorta like Iowa’s roads. But none the less, this bodes well for downballot rural Iowa democrats.
On to our neighboring caucus and my home state, Minnesota… Where Bernie’s votes alone matched the entire republican turnout! But out here in rural R+6 Congressional District 7 on the border with the Dakotas, the republicans slightly bested us on turnout, 13,010 to 10,450. Hillary lost to Bernie here too, garnering 3,852 votes… But Trump finished 3rd in the republican caucuses with only 3,017 votes. But if Trump scares off half his republican opponents supporters and Hillary hangs on to 80% of Bernie’s supporters, republican turnout drops off a cliff and Hillary wins by about a 6% margin!
Lets break out some select caucus results a bit finer, down to the state senate district level. Minnesota’s R+3 1st senate district is now in play with long time DFL senator Stumpf retiring and DFLers challenging republican incumbents on the house side, and the republicans drew half again as many caucus attendees as we DFLers did. But Hillary beat Trump 384 to 308, and that margin only grows if Trump scares off his caucus opponent’s supporters while Hillary wins over most of Bernie’s supporters.
At the south end of this 400 mile long district lies R+6 district 16, currently misrepresented by republicans in the senate and two house seats. Similar to CD7 as a whole, the republicans narrowly beat the DFL on turnout, thanks to massive DFL youth turnout in college town Marshall. Hillary beat Trump 425 to 335, That margin grow to around 1100 to 900 or 10% if Trump loses half the republican’s support as expected. This again bodes well for downballot dem candidates, but there’s still not a single declared DFL candidate for district 16’s senate and two house seats, especially 16A that is only R+3… Probably due to the state DFL party’s failure to get behind previous candidates. DFL HQ, take a hint!
Just north of there is R+1 district 17, a battle ground district for the last couple decades that flopped back and forth between the parties. Caucus turnout again narrowly favored the republicans by about 1500 to 1200 for the DFL, with Hillary getting 619 votes to Trump’s 331! Factor in the republican’s that will stay home rather than voter for Trump, and this looks to be an easy double digit landslide for Hillary. The legislative races here will be heavily targeted by the DFL in contrast to neighboring district 16 and should easily stay blue on the senate side and flip back blue on the house side.
But it ain’t so pretty down here in R+6 district 22, hard up against Iowa and South Dakota and straddling congressional districts 1 and 7. The republicans had darn near twice the DFL turnout here, but Trump was especially unpopular getting only 250 of the 1200 odd republican votes to Hillary’s 320. But even if Trump can only hold on to half his republican opponent’s supporters, he still handily beats Hillary even if Hillary gets every one of Bernie’s supporters. But what can one expect for a district that’s partly a cross border extension of northwest Iowa’s “holy lands” that’s been all but abandoned by the state DFL party?
On to last night’s primary battlegrounds, where the republicans whipped our butts on turnout in Florida, Missouri, and Ohio while we about tied in North Carolina and beat them in Illinois. But getting granular, in most every state over half the democratic vote came from a handful or less of metropolitan counties. And despite winning a blowout in turnout, Illinois was the worst, with over half the democratic vote centered in just Cook county, AKA Chicago. Other than Cook and Lake counties and East St.Louis, the republicans beat us on turnout almost everywhere… That does not bode well for downballot dem candidates!
So in conclusion, the caucuses and primaries predict democratic electoral victories in much of rural Iowa and Minnesota. But for the forgotten (by metrocentric state democratic parties) rural corners of the states and rural Illinois period, the republicans will get re-elected and get to do what they do best, get in the way, for another term or decade ‘til the democrats rediscover the 50 state strategy. YMMV, of course… Hillary scares off independents but not so much as Trump. And while denying Trump the nomination in a brokered convention/riot would lose republicans the presidency, it might save their downballot republicans butts. And who knows what other drama will play out between now and november...