Today, I am going to be looking at two Iowa Senate Districts: SD 7 and SD 39. IA SD 7 is located in the western part of state in Woodbury County, home to Sioux City, while IA SD 39 is located in the southeastern part of the state, and contains the western portion of Johnson County, home to Iowa City, as well as all of Keokuk County and most of Washington County.
Both SD 7 and SD 39 have traditionally leaned fairly heavily Democratic. In 2012, SD 7 easily went for Barack Obama by nearly 15 points, while SD 39 supported Obama by a narrower margin of around 7 points (though this is still slightly better than he did statewide.) However, in 2016, both of these districts swung to the right (like the state of IA as a whole), with Donald Trump carrying them. However, unlike a lot of other Obama/Trump legislative districts, which Trump carried by double digits or by near double digits, Trump only narrowly carried SD 7 and SD 39. Specifically, he carried the former senate district by just under 5 points, and the latter district by just under 4 points (underperforming his statewide margin by at least 4 points in both cases). In 2018, the Democrats rebounded in both of these districts to some extent, with Dem Fred Hubbell carrying SD 39 by between 4 and 5 points in the Governor’s race and losing SD 7 by a razor-thin margin of 18 votes (less than a quarter of a percentage point). The fact that Hubbell’s performances were in between those of Obama’s and Hillary Clinton’s isn’t too surprising. It’s interesting, though, that Hubbell performed better in SD 39 than in SD 7. Given the common trend of “mean reversion” that we have seen among 2018 statewide Dems, one may have expected Hubbell to perform better in SD 7, given that it was quite a bit bluer to begin with (than SD 39) and hadn’t become significantly redder than SD 39. In 2020, Joe Biden wasn’t quite as successful as Hubbell (and therefore Obama), though he did outperform Clinton in both districts, which wasn’t true in several other Obama/Trump districts (where Trump improved on his 2016 showings.) In particular, Biden very narrowly carried SD 39 by a razor-thin 12 vote margin (less than a tenth of a percentage point), and lost SD 7 by about a percentage point (only slightly worse than Hubbell).
It’s also worth discussing the various demographics of these districts. According to recent Census estimates, SD 39 seems to be a better-educated district overall, with college-educated individuals (bachelor’s degree or higher) making up about 32% of the district’s total population, in contrast to SD 7, where college-educated individuals make up less than 20% of that district’s total population. The fact that SD 7 isn’t as educated might be one of the reasons why the district experienced a larger swing to the right in 2016, given that Trump’s biggest gains largely came from non-college educated voters. On the other hand, SD 7 seems to be a more diverse district, with Hispanics making up approximately 23% of the district’s population and Non-Hispanic Whites making up about 62% of the district’s population. This contrasts with SD 39 which is nearly 90% Non-Hispanic White. It seems that the reason SD 7 hasn’t moved further to the right is due to the district’s diversity (whereas the reason in SD 39 seems to be that the district is better educated). Still, given’s Biden’s weaknesses with minority voters (particularly Hispanic voters), especially when compared to Clinton, it’s interesting that he didn’t really struggle any more in SD 7 than in SD 39, as he ran about 4 points ahead of her in both districts. SD 7 ‘s being more diverse also doesn’t necessarily explain why Hubbell did worse (than he did in SD 39), though maybe Hubbell being perceived as a rich, businessman was a turnoff among minority voters (as well as less-educated voters).
The recent state senate races should also be looked at. Note that since the IA state senate has staggered terms, with half of the chamber on the ballot, every two years, the current incarnations of both of these districts didn’t go into effect until 2014. In 2014, Democrat Kevin Kinney won the open race for SD 39 by a fairly narrow 4.5 point margin, which was key for the Democrats in keeping their narrow majority in the upper chamber, while Republican Rick Bertrand easily won reelection in SD 7 by nearly 20 points. Despite 2018 being favorable to Democrats overall, the Dems did not have a great year in the IA State Senate, with Republicans having a net gain of two seats, expanding their majority in the chamber. (The GOP flipped the chamber in 2016). However, both SD 7 and SD 39 were among the few bright spots for senate Dems that year. Most notably, Dem Jackie Smith flipped SD 7, as she defeated Bertrand by roughly 2.5 points. It should be pointed out that the 2018 senate race for SD 7 was somewhat of an unusual situation, given that Betrand initially wasn’t running for reelection and accepted the GOP nomination fairly late in the cycle via a special convention after the previous GOP nominee Steven Stokes, who won the nomination in the primary, withdrew. This means that Bertrand (despite being the incumbent) campaigned for this seat far less seriously than Smith did, which might have contributed to the district flipping. SD 39 also featured a solid Dem senate performance, with Kinney winning reelection by a decent 9-point margin. (In all fairness, neither of these two senate seats were as red as the three districts that the Republicans flipped.)
Finally, this brings us to the future implications of these districts, with regards to redistricting for 2022. At this point, we don’t know what the 2022 IA State Senate districts will look like, or perhaps even which districts will be on the ballot, though it would make sense for the districts resembling the current SDs 7 and 39 to be up in 2022, given that their current incarnations were previously up in midterm years. While Iowa’s non-partisan Legislative Services Agency has already drawn a set of congressional and legislative maps, the Republican controlled legislature has rejected these maps, giving the LSA two more attempts, after which the legislature can draw its own maps if they reject both of the next two LSA maps. Even if the Republicans end up drawing their own gerrymander, it’s going to be hard to make SD 7 considerably more Republican, given that one criteria of Iowa redistricting is to keep communities of interest together, minimizing city/county splits as much as possible, so the idea of “cracking” Sioux City (which is the Democratic base of the district) would likely be a no-no. SD 39 is perhaps a bit more concerning for Dems, given that it might be possible for the Republicans to redraw the district to be reliably red. In the current SD 39, the Democratic strength in the district seems to come from the Johnson County part of the district (the western Iowa City suburbs), with the Keokuk and Washington parts leaning heavily Republican. Currently, there are also two other districts based in Johnson County located directly east of SD 39, which are both reliably blue. This means that the GOP might be able to turn SD 39 into a red district, by removing the Johnson County part (and adding it to one or both of the other Johnson based districts).
Thanks to Daily Kos Elections (for the 2012, 2016, 2018, and 2020 calculations) and New York Times (for the 2020 precinct level data).