Who’s Moving on From Iowa and Who’s Dead in the Water? Here Are the Key Places to Watch Tonight

You don’t have to wait for a winner to be called tonight to know how Iowa’s Republican caucuses are going to unfold.

To get a sense of whether the polls are right and Donald Trump is gearing up for a landslide, look to key county returns as they trickle in through the evening — they’ll provide some of the most revealing data about where things are heading.

Iowa’s 99 counties have clear voting patterns — and they tell us who needs to carry which regions if they hope to meet or exceed expectations.

From the river towns to the farm counties to the fast-growing suburbs of Des Moines, you can see an outline of four clear blocs. Never was it clearer than in the 2008, 2012, and 2016 Republican caucuses, the last three that were seriously contested.

These regions, which combined to cast over 90 percent of Iowa’s total vote in 2016, are also faintly visible in the campaign travel schedules of Trump, Ron DeSantis, and Nikki Haley. Taken together, they provide valuable insight into who’s going to win, place, and show.

Here are the places to follow on caucus night to get a feel for who’s thriving and who’s not in the first presidential nominating contest of 2024.

RELIGIOUS CONSERVATIVE COUNTIES

Iowa’s religious conservatives have delivered wins for the last three victors, and DeSantis has banked on them to carry him to victory. DeSantis’ entire Iowa operation has been staffed and led by people who helmed Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s 2016 effort, and he has spent a great deal of time garnering evangelical Christian support. He clearly expected that the backing of those like The Family Leader’s Bob Vander Plaats, whose endorsement many credit with fueling Cruz’s, Rick Santorum’s and Mike Huckabee’s triumphs, would propel him forward.

These counties tend to be smaller and more rural, which is also why he alone of the major candidates has done “the full Grassley” and visited every county at least once. DeSantis is banking that visits and his extensive organization — his campaign named chairs in every county last summer — will deliver a high turnout of committed backers.

Forty of the state’s 99 counties have voted for the religious conservative favorite in each of the last three contested caucuses. Together they cast almost 46,000 votes in 2016, about one-quarter of the total turnout. DeSantis needs to win or finish a close second to Trump in the lion’s share of these places or he will be trounced on caucus night.

Religious redoubts can be found across the state but are centered in three regions. The northwest corner of the state is home to a large concentration of Dutch Americans, who are among the most conservative people in America. Look to Sioux and Lyon counties here, which are so dominated by the faithful that they even backed former Family Research Council President Gary Bauer’s quixotic campaign against George W. Bush in 2000. A smaller concentration of Dutch, combined with other evangelicals, populate the Des Moines exurbs south and east of the capital. Jasper, Warren, Marion and Mahaska counties are key. Finally, the north center of the state contains a chunk of medium-sized counties like Hardin and Grundy that combine to offer a potent well of support.

UPSCALE, HIGHLY EDUCATED COUNTIES

Polls show former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley is emerging as the choice of upscale Republicans, and her hopes rest on winning large margins in the state’s urban areas. Only three counties have backed the upscale candidate — Mitt Romney or Marco Rubio — in each caucus since 2008, but they cast a bit over 24,000 votes in 2016. Three other large, highly educated counties — including Polk, home to Des Moines — voted for the upscale favorite in two of the last three races. They cast a whopping 50,264 votes in 2016. Add the six counties together and it means almost 75,000 votes, or more than 40 percent of the 2016 total, came from potentially Haley-friendly counties.

These places are where you’d expect them to be: homes to large state universities like Story (Iowa State) and Johnson (University of Iowa) or large cities like Polk County’s Des Moines and its wealthy suburbs in neighboring Dallas County. Not surprisingly, these six have the highest share of people with four-year college degrees of all Iowa’s counties. That’s what makes Scott County, home of Davenport, another upscale bastion. Davenport is the major city in the Quad Cities metropolitan area and 43 percent of Scott County residents have 4-year college degrees. Corporate executives may work in Illinois, but they live here. Linn County (Cedar Rapids) performs a similar role for its metro area. Look here on caucus night to gauge whether Haley’s comet is about to streak across the political sky.

Haley’s travels show how important these places are for her. An analysis of Des Moines Register data shows she has focused her attention on places like this over the last year. She spent the week before Christmas hosting three events in the Davenport or Cedar Rapids media markets, and attended a University of Iowa basketball game on December 30. Haley’s final three Iowa events will be in Dallas, Polk and Linn counties. That’s as clear a signal as a campaign can send about the places they prioritize.

MODERATE RIVER COUNTIES

The third group is a collection of largely blue-collar counties that tend to favor less-conservative candidates. They backed Romney in 2008 and 2012 but switched to Trump in 2016. These five counties — Dubuque, Clinton, Muscatine, Plymouth and Pottawattamie — all sit next to either the Missouri or Mississippi rivers on the state’s borders. Including a sixth similar county, Woodbury, that leans in this direction, these places cast about 20,000 votes in 2016.

These are not economically vibrant places. Woodbury’s (Sioux City) population is smaller than it was in 1960, and population either dropped or barely grew in Clinton, Muscatine, Pottawattamie (Council Bluffs) and Plymouth. It may not be a coincidence that Romney and Trump were business executives who could plausibly argue that their experience would allow them to better manage the economy.

Trump’s travels reveal their relative importance. The former president has only held 24 events in Iowa as of January 12, but five of them have been in these counties.

POPULIST COUNTIES

Seventeen counties have voted for economically populist candidates — Huckabee, Santorum, Trump — in the last three caucuses. These areas are scattered around the state and cast roughly 17,000 votes in 2016. The largest — Des Moines (the county, not the city), Wapello and Webster — contributed a third of that total. Trump’s visits again betray the importance of these voters; four of his 24 events have been held here, and he will hold two more in them during the campaign’s final days.

BLACK HAWK COUNTY, THE BELLWETHER

Those looking for a bellwether need look no further than Black Hawk County. The fifth largest county in Iowa has cast its votes within a couple of percentage points of each of the top three candidates’ statewide totals since 2008. Black Hawk’s champion doesn’t always win — Ron Paul narrowly carried it in 2012 — but Republicans’ sentiments here mirror the state’s better than any other major county.