Battleground Breakdown: Where Iowa Stands in the 2016 Presidential Race
An in-depth look at one of the toss-up states in the 2016 election.
— -- Iowa, the first state to vote in the primaries and caucuses, is a key swing state in the 2016 election, and the race is close between the two candidates.
Here's an in-depth look at the battleground state of Iowa:
State’s Voting History in Presidential Elections
Iowans voted for Barack Obama over John McCain in 2008 and over Mitt Romney in 2012. Obama garnered over 50 percent of the vote in both those elections. George W. Bush lost Iowa in 2000 to Al Gore but scooped up the state in 2004 against John Kerry.
How It Played in the Caucuses
In February, Hillary Clinton won the Iowa Democratic caucuses by a hair: 0.3 percentage point. She received 49.9 percent of the vote to Bernie Sanders' 49.6 percent. Donald Trump was not as lucky on the Republican side, finishing 3 points behind Ted Cruz.
Money Matters
The Clinton team is reserving $7.1 million on future TV ads in Iowa — about 35 times the $200,000 that Trump’s campaign is hoping to spend.
Ground Operations
The Republican National Committee has 63 staffers and 57 trained volunteer organizers in the Hawkeye State. Clinton and the Democratic National Committee have 33 offices set up in Iowa.
State Issues
Just before the Iowa caucuses, a Quinnipiac poll found that Iowa Democrats and Republicans both ranked the economy and jobs as the most important issue in deciding their party’s nominee. Iowa's economy has a large agricultural sector. The renewable fuel standard under the Energy Policy Act of 2005 requires that petroleum-based fuel be mixed with a certain amount from renewable sources, like ethanol. Iowa is a huge producer of corn, the primary crop used for ethanol. Iowans are largely in support of the renewable fuel standard because it has helped create jobs. Critics, however, say the standard must be repealed because using ethanol is not as beneficial for the environment as first believed and it’s driving up the price of food.
Latest Poll Numbers
Trump and Clinton are neck-and-neck in Iowa.
According to a Des Moines Register poll released on October 8, Trump polled at 43 percent of support, but Clinton is within the margin of error at 39 percent. This poll, however, was conducted before video surfaced of Trump making lewd comments about women in 2005.
45 percent of Iowans polled were not concerned about Trump's decision not to release his taxes, but 48 percent were bothered a lot by his attitude toward women. As for the former secretary of state, 53 percent of Iowans were concerned about Clinton's handling of her private email and 52 percent were bothered a lot by her handling of the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.