Rural Iowans have nobody to represent them; Republicans certainly aren’t doing it

If Republicans are the party for rural Iowans, why are the Democrats the ones trying to protect rural water quality? Why doesn’t the state government have a meaningful plan to slow population decline?

It’s conventional wisdom these days that America is divided between city and country, an urban-rural divide that drives our politics. Urban Democrats and rural Republicans, they say, have different cultures and rarely mingle. In this story, Democrats represent the interests of the cities and Republicans those of rural areas.

How, then, do we explain Iowa’s state government?

The allegedly pro-rural GOP has controlled the governor’s office and both houses of the state Legislature since 2017. So why are state policies so bad for rural Iowa?

Consider a few recent examples:

• Republicans’ signature accomplishment last year, public funding for private schools, has almost no benefit to Iowa’s rural counties, most of which have zero private schools.
• Gov. Kim Reynolds’ greatest priority this year has been cutting back the state Area Educational Associations, which primarily benefit smaller school districts. Iowa City can hire a multi-school speech pathologist and make its own bulk purchases; even Mason City needs access to the pooled professionals and purchasing power of the AEAs.
• Prominent Republicans back CO2 pipelines, despite their unpopularity with farmers.
• Large rural sections of the state lack mental, maternity, or reproductive health care after Republicans closed regional mental health centers and “reformed” a once-successful state family planning program.
• Meanwhile, the governor’s budget recommended zero funding for a UI initiative to better provide rural healthcare.

If Republicans are the party for rural Iowans, why are the Democrats the ones trying to protect rural water quality? Why doesn’t the Republican-controlled state government have a meaningful plan to slow or stop population decline in rural counties? Why isn’t the state government doing more to support rural hospitals and small farmers, or reducing Iowa’s reliance on ethanol mandates?

In short, why isn’t the so-called rural party focused on rural issues?

Maybe because it isn’t really the rural party.

Any post-election map will show Iowa with great swaths of red counties that voted Republican. But those are the counties that are losing population. Do they really have enough votes to carry an election?

According to the 2022 voting totals, the answer, at least for statewide races, is “no.”

We looked at two of the more competitive 2022 races, U.S. Senate and state auditor. In both races, the GOP performed better in rural counties. However, using the most generous definition of “rural,” at most 40% of Iowans live in rural counties. Even with high rural vote tallies, Republicans still draw up to 3 in 5 of their votes from urban and suburban counties.

And there’s the rub: Republicans need strong support in rural Iowa to compensate for how badly they do in cities. But because fewer people live in rural Iowa, a clear majority of Iowa Republican voters do not live in rural counties and may not care about rural issues.

The urban/rural narrative might be truer in the Legislature, where rural counties have direct representation. The growing number of uncontested legislative races says that the political parties think so and means that Republican legislators don’t have to work for their votes.

The end result for rural Iowa is that no party really represents its interests. Democrats care about things like education, water quality, and health care, but most Democratic representatives have an urban constituency. And rural Republicans may fear crossing the governor, who has brought out-of-state interest groups to fund primary challengers to Republicans who oppose her agenda. Food for thought, and perhaps a reason to run for office as an independent, if you live in a rural area.

But all of us should reconsider how we think about our communities and their needs. Bright blue Johnson County has more Republican voters than the 10 smallest rural counties combined. 30,000 more rural Iowans voted for our Democratic state auditor than for the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate. Our state is more purple than it looks at first blush, and both parties would do well to remember that.

Kelcey Patrick-Ferree and Shannon Patrick live in Iowa City and write at www.ourlibertiesweprize.com. And biannual time changes must be abolished.