Iowa is a strange state, although it is pretty “bible-belt” and conservative on most social issues, many Iowans depend a great deal on big government handouts in the form of farm subsidies, so what should be a Republican lock often turns into a tossup.
BINGO!!!! Same with Wisconsin.
Iowa has never been particularly conservative on social issues. It drifts with the larger culture.
Did you know there’s actually only about 60,000 full-time farmers in Iowa? The primarily farming counties are almost always Republican.
Union, industrial, and Catholic eastern Iowa is the Democrat base. Republicans in the Des Moines metro are mostly social moderates and upper middle class. Very large population of Social Security recipients throughout the state.