When Aaron Schatz surveys the wreckage of 2020, he finds himself doing surprisingly well.
Profits on his Iowa dairy farm are up thanks to coronavirus. The pandemic feels a distant threat, and Schatz has yet to wear a mask. Black Lives Matter protests are an annoyance but really someone else’s problem.
But Schatz is worried that Donald Trump, the man he hesitantly backed four years ago after twice voting for Barack Obama, may be in trouble.
“I’m more for Trump than I was before. As a dairy farmer, I feel like I’m sitting better than I have in 10 years,” said the fifth-generation farmer in Howard county, north-eastern Iowa.
“But I’m a little scared for Trump. It’s gonna be a tough battle. A year ago I wasn’t worried. I thought he’d have it.”
Schatz was among voters instrumental in flipping Howard county from Obama to Trump four years ago by the largest margin of any county in the US. That swing, of more than 40 points in the rural and heavily white county, contributed to the president winning Iowa with the biggest Republican victory since Ronald Reagan in 1980. Just four months ago, the Democrats saw little reason to think the outcome would be any different this year.
A Des Moines Register poll in March gave Trump a 10-point lead over his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden.
But an election turned upside down by a pandemic that has created even more chaos than a president famed for disruption has put Iowa into contention. Now Trump is fighting to cling to a narrow lead over Biden. Just 45% of Iowans approve of Trump’s handling of the pandemic and only 37% think he has provided the right leadership on the Black Lives Matter protests.
Perhaps most worrying for Trump, 45% of Republican voters in Iowa say the nation is on the wrong track.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
