What makes the Fourth Congressional District different? (Des Moines, Sioux City: house, university)

[Mouldy Old Schmo]

What makes the Fourth Congressional District much more conservative than Iowa’s other three districts? Are there no heavily-Democrat college towns?

[TuxSam90]

Look at a precipitation map of Iowa. The Northwest quadrant gets quite a bit less rain than the rest of Iowa. There are hardly any trees there and it's very flat. The topography is much more like Kansas/Nebrasks - and the voters act accordingly.

[mofford]

Well, King lost Story county which includes the college town of Ames, and he also lost Cerro Gordo and Floyd counties. These are counties that were not part of his old district before the redistricting change a few years ago. He used to have just the far western counties from the Minnesota to the Missouri border. Now it's much more difficult for King, before, he only had two TV markets he had to run spots for, Omaha and Sioux City. Now he has to spread his advertising budget to Mason City, Des Moines, Sioux City and Omaha market, to fully cover his district with TV spots, and much of that advertising gets wasted on areas outside his district. I'm sure SW Iowa does not really like being in the same district as Des Moines, as their reliable conservative vote now gets crushed by Polk County.

Scholten was a strong opponent for King this time around, he was a former baseball player and ran a better campaign than anyone before, who ran against King. Add to that, the big fairy tale about King being in kahootz with Nazi's in Austria, a story which hit late in the campaign. This, after King had already decided not to spend a lot of money on advertising this time around. The Des Moines TV stations put a lot of effort in trying to hammer him down this time. All that combined, just about put him down for the count. Kinda surprised he lost Woodbury county this time (Sioux City), which went for Reynolds (R) for governor by a comfortable margin. Counsil Bluffs, which is no longer in his district, voted for David Young (R) who lost his election.

4th District election results, by county
https://www.nytimes.com/elections/re...use-district-4

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[fezzador]

Sioux City also has a sizable Hispanic population so my guess is that the nonwhite vote probably propelled Scholten to win Woodbury county. Fort Dodge has a notable black and Hispanic population (granted Webster county is still well over 80% white) which probably explains Scholten winning Webster county. And Boone county, while much whiter than either Woodbury or Webster, likely favored Scholten due to its proximity to DSM and Ames.


Although I have a hard time ever seeing far-western Iowa go blue on a consistent basis, I think King's influence is slowly waning. His bread-and-butter (white folks that are 50+) are either dying off or moving out, and a lot of younger voters seem to be calling him out for the snake he is. His days are numbered. He may already be a lame duck.

[duster1979]

It's really not. The third district is really more red than the fourth district, other than Des Moines which carries enough weight to sway the vote. The eastern districts, other that the university areas, are pretty red culturally but often vote Democrat because of union influence in the manufacturing centers along the river.

[fezzador]

I think I've heard that before. Aren't pro-union Dems called "blue dogs" or something like that?

[Mouldy Old Schmo]

Originally Posted by fezzador

I think I've heard that before. Aren't pro-union Dems called "blue dogs" or something like that?

“Blue Dog” refers to conservative Southern Democrats, who don’t really exist anymore.

[fezzador]

The House Republicans are finally publicly condemning King for his "Western Civilization" tripe. They're barring him from his committee duties, and the House Democrats are pushing for his ouster.


His already-tarnished reputation has taken yet another hit. I don't think he'll lose his seat prematurely, but by now it's all but a foregone conclusion that this will be his last term.

[smpliving]

I wouldn't dismiss another term for Steve King quite yet. I have a feeling the backlash is going to anger and rally his ardent supporters.

[fezzador]

Most of the people in his district are either completely repulsed by him, or those who voted for him felt obligated to do so because "at least he's not a liberal". Those diehard supporters are in a distinct minority.


My hunch is that Randy Feenstra will give King all he can handle in the primaries.