Iowa is where Obama upset the presumptive nominee, Hillary Clinton four years ago. It is overwhelmingly made up of a constituencies which tend to vote Republican. Not only did he win the caucuses, he flipped the state in the general election and carried it by a substantial margin in his reelection.
If you ever go to Iowa, you won't see many people likely to vote for Obama on the basis of racial affinity.
I grew up in L.A., came to Iowa for college and stayed. Am now in my late 30's. Was not affiliated with any party when I caucused for Obama the first go 'round.
Iowa is an interesting political crossroads for the nation. We have a large percentage of the population above 65 - 15% (http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-09.pdf) - and still rural - 36% as of 2010 (http://www.iowadatacenter.org/quickfacts). We are somewhat socially liberal - gay rights are making headway here - and fiscally conservative - our state sales tax is 6%.
Our racial makeup is predominantly caucasian, but we have been welcoming minorities and they are on the increase. Hispanic, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Serbians, Chinese, Ethiopians, etc continue to migrate here and are well represented at my children's school.
Where am I going with this? Iowans as a whole are hardworking people who are very giving of their time and want what's best for the country. We are accepting of others opinions and able to hold rational political discussions. And I think most of us are sick of gridlock in Washington and can see through the political BS (for example, all the posturing during the last round of federal budgeting). The older registered Republicans I've talked with over the last couple of years have told me they can see that Obama has been trying to work with Republican politicians, and it's not his fault things aren't getting done. That's why we re-elected him.
I think Iowa does a good job of being at the center of the U.S., both geographically and politically.
My in-laws are from Kossuth County and I've been there several times. Being of largely homogenous ethnic backgrounds, the indigenous divisions are largely religious and between townships, i.e. one will hear talk about (Roman) Catholic towns and Lutheran towns and how one traditionally drives Chevys and the other Fords (or vice versa).
> We are somewhat socially liberal - gay rights are making headway here - and fiscally conservative - our state sales tax is 6%.
Based on this everything else you mentioned about Iowa, it seems like it would be a great state for third party candidates to try to upset the two party balance.
I agree that Iowa would be a good place for third party candidates to make a run, but the problem they have is visibility. There's no national visibility, and there's no local coverage. We have strong local media though, and I would actually call them balanced, so I've no idea why the visibility is lacking.
Not overwhelmingly. The rural areas in the northwest of the state are hard-red, but the rest of the rural areas vary from mostly-red to evenly split. Des Moines is mostly split, but the SE and E areas are fairly blue. My federal house district includes the heart of downtown Des Moines and almost exactly split down the middle, which is partially why our last house race was so contentious. The state just happened to barely go for GWB in 2004 because of John Kerry's weak campaign.
If you ever go to Iowa, you won't see many people likely to vote for Obama on the basis of racial affinity.