Welcome to Iowa, where Trump's purple patch could turn a blue state red

In November 2015 Donald Trump proclaimed to a crowd of Iowans: “How stupid are the people of Iowa?” Two months later he lost the Iowa Republican caucus. Almost a year on he may win the Hawkeye State in the presidential election.

Republicans have only won Iowa once since Ronald Reagan – in 2004, when George Bush eked out a win by 10,000 of more than 1.5 million votes. And yet, among the traditional battleground states, Iowa has become perhaps Trump’s best hope of a win. While national polls show the Republican far behind his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, recent Iowa polls have the candidates neck and neck.

Trump’s strong position is in part due to the fact that unlike in other swing states, the Iowan Republican establishment has rallied conclusively behind him.

On Saturday at the Roast and Ride, a fundraiser featuring pork sandwiches and motorcycles held on behalf of the freshman senator Joni Ernst, every major Iowa Republican was present. All three US representatives and both senators rallied behind Trump. So did Terry Branstad, the longest-serving governor in American history.

With Trump only midway through a speech that touched on hot issues such as immigration policy and his attempt to appeal to African American voters, things almost became awkward: Branstad, Ernst, congressman Steve King, lieutenant governor Kim Reynolds and state party chair Jeff Kaufmann all gathered behind the candidate, squeezing in for a photo opportunity.

As Kaufmann told the Guardian, this rare embrace of a candidate who blew the establishment to pieces in primary season and has not dialled down his rhetoric or style since came about thanks to Iowa’s vulnerable status as the state that kicks off each presidential election.

“As a first-in-the-nation state,” Kaufmann said, “our folks are discerning and even our officeholders dig a little bit deeper.”

However, the real fuel for Iowa Republicans’ love for Trump is to be found in the strong ties between the candidate and Branstad. The governor has long been an enthusiastic supporter and has stumped the state on thebusinessman’s behalf. Furthermore, Trump’s Iowa campaign director is Branstad’s son, Eric, a veteran operative who during the caucuses led a bipartisan advocacy campaign on behalf of the renewable fuels industry. In Iowa at least, as election day approaches, Trump can count on the party machinery going into fully into gear.

This is not to say Iowa Republicans are unfamiliar with intra-party conflict, and a vocal “Never Trump” contingent is to be found among those who supported Ted Cruz, the victor of the caucuses. But it receives no establishment support. Even congressmen in swing districts are happy to appear with Trump.

In contrast, Democrats are off the pace they set in the past two election cycles, regarding organizational goals like absentee ballot requests and thanks to lingering bad blood from the caucuses, when many supporters of Bernie Sanders felt the state party chair, Andy McGuire, tilted the scales on Clinton’s behalf. There is open campaigning to replace McGuire after the presidential vote.

Blue collar, white voter … red state?

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In recent decades Iowa has seen almost no demographic change. Ninety-one per cent white, it was one of a handful of states where Barack Obama won a majority of white voters four years ago. But many of the blue-collar white voters who have traditionally voted Democratic in the eastern part of the state are increasingly attracted to Trump.

In fading factory towns like Dubuque and Waterloo, long bastions of Democratic support, Trump’s anti-free trade and anti-immigration message is increasingly finding an audience.

In the suburbs of Des Moines and Cedar Rapids, meanwhile, he is not losing many moderate Republicans – mostly because such areas are home to significant numbers of evangelical Christians, to whom Clinton is simply anathema. If such voters do not vote for a third party candidate or stay home, Trump will be their man.

New Trump supporters have, however, presented new challenges. Traditionally, Republican operatives scorn Democratic campaigns, which tend to be based on hiring hundreds of staffers to go door to door, getting marginal voters to sign up for absentee ballot requests. Republican voters have been far more consistent, meaning the party’s campaigns have instead focused on tapping into networks of social conservatives, in particular home-schoolers.

Now, with social conservatives less enthusiastic about Trump than other Republicans, the Trump campaign’s efforts in Iowa must become non-traditional – in effect, Democratic-style efforts meant to turn out former Democrats.

This shift has been buoyed by what Kauffman, the Republican Iowa state chair, sees as a “resurgence of rural populism”. Iowa has a long and bipartisan history of rabble-rousing, going back to the 1890s. In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, farmers held dramatic strikes and even kidnapped a judge who presided over foreclosures. In parts of the state, martial law was declared. That tradition had receded, but Kaufmann has seen Trump hauling it back to the surface.

Republican gains are borne out in registration figures. Since November 2012, Democratic voter registration in Iowa has fallen by 15,000. In the same time, Republicans have picked up almost 20,000 voters. This effort has been helped by two strong midterm results, eradicating the Democratic bench and leaving the party holding only one of the state’s four congressional seats.

In the shifting political math of 2016, all this makes Iowa far more winnable for Trump than many traditionally more competitive states. Accordingly, his campaign has committed significant resources. It is expected that Trump will campaign in the state three or four times a month until election day. Saturday’s Roast and Ride was a taster.

Even if this is not enough, and Trump loses Iowa, the coalition he has built may point to a long-term shift which will make the state less purple and more red. As Kaufmann said, win or lose: “I think we have the ingredients for a realignment.”

That was a statement with which one well-connected Democrat agreed, though he did not want to attach his name to such an opinion. As he said mournfully this weekend: “Increasingly, it seems like it is a Republican state and they just let Democrats live here.”