(Radio Iowa) – Donald Trump won all but five counties in Iowa and Republicans gained seats in the Iowa legislature. Iowa Democratic Party chair Rita Hart says the results are — in her words — “an absolute gut punch.”
University of Northern Iowa political science professor Christopher Larimer says it shows the urban-rural divide in Iowa continues to expand and the shift toward Republican candidates for the legislature that began in 2010 continues.
Jimmy Centers, who was Governor Terry Branstad’s spokesman, has worked on local, state and presidential campaigns. Centers says he was struck by Trump’s margin of victory in Iowa. No presidential candidate in the past 50 years has won by a larger percentage — including Ronald Reagan in 1980, which won by just under 13 percent.
