IOWA, USA — Donald Trump won the state of Iowa by nearly 14 percentage points over Kamala Harris and Local 5 is finding Harris significantly underperformed in each county compared to Joe Biden's performance in 2020.
Harris polled worse than Biden did in 2020 in every county in Iowa, except for one. Story County is the only Iowa county the Democratic party saw improvement in polls since the 2020 election.
Democratic Strategist, Pete D'Alessandro says it's hard to compare the two campaigns, "because she had such a short campaign, and because we've kind of moved out of the type of state that is kind of purple state. They really weren't doing a lot here. So, it's hard to compare it to years when they actually had campaign managers and people on the ground and doing all that."
The biggest head turner in Iowa is in Scott County. Trump won Scott County with 51.2% over Harris' 46.3%.
This year is the first time a Republican candidate has won Scott County since Ronald Reagan won it in 1984.
D'Alessandro believes this shift is a much broader issue, adding it's because Democrats have moved away from talking about economic populism.
"The state's moving more towards not being competitive at the statewide level," D'Alessandro said. "You had a situation where the Democratic Party was basically building back up from the ground because they had lost the caucus. I don't think it's a fault other than the Democrats becoming less competitive, that's where the fault lies, and that's a long-term thing that happened."
Despite Harris having less time to campaign and Iowa trending less purple, D'Alessandro says race and gender could have played a slight role in the outcome.
"I just think, if we're honest with ourselves, it's part of who we are as a country, and we will always be struggling with that original sin of racism and bigotry," D'Alessandro said.
In 63 out of Iowa's 99 counties, Harris' results were lower than both Biden in 2020 and Hilary Clinton in 2016.
D'Alessandro says the results nationwide are a wakeup call for the party.
"I think the Democrats are at a kind of a fork in the road," D'Alessandro said. "They're going to have to make a choice whether they want to go back to actually start talking about those issues again and if they don't, they're going to have to figure out a way to build a coalition that can win races with this other way that they're doing it."
In the 2024 race, Trump received 70% or more of the votes in 41 Iowa counties. In 2016, Trump only received 70% or more of the votes in just 15 counties.
Local 5 reached out to the Iowa Democratic Party and Scott County Democrats, but did not hear back.