Donald Trump has won the state of Iowa, according to calls by multiple media outlets.
Iowa election results: Donald Trump wins, making a dramatic change in the usually Democratic state
Andrew Prokop is a senior politics correspondent at Vox, covering the White House, elections, and political scandals and investigations. He’s worked at Vox since the site’s launch in 2014, and before that, he worked as a research assistant at the New Yorker’s Washington, DC, bureau.
The outcome is no surprise, since the Hawkeye State had looked to be trending red this year, more so than other traditional swing states. Trump overtook Hillary Clinton in the polls in early September and never relinquished his lead.
Iowa has been a bellwether state for decades. Its final margin has been within 2.5 points of the final margin nationwide in every election from 1992 to 2012. (Democrats won Iowa in each of those years except for 2004.) And now, it has swung toward Trump.
As Ed Kilgore wrote earlier this year, the explanation for Iowa’s movement lies in race and education. About 88 percent of Iowa’s population is non-Hispanic whites, and a large proportion of those white voters aren’t college-educated. And Trump has polled extremely well with non-college-educated whites.
Remember when the election started in Iowa?
Just a little more than nine months ago, the presidential race’s first contest took place in this state when voters convened for the Iowa caucuses.
Neither Trump nor Clinton did particularly well in Iowa, as both faced tough challenges from candidates who went on to do consistently well. Trump, who had been leading in polls, was upset by Ted Cruz. And Clinton only squeaked out the tiniest of victories against Bernie Sanders, who went on to romp to victory in New Hampshire the following week.
And that wasn’t Clinton’s first frustration with the Hawkeye State, either. Back during her first presidential run in 2008, she lost the Iowa caucuses in an upset to Barack Obama, who, of course, went on to become president.
