The Iowa town that can predict who is going to win the 2020 election

When people seek to try and forecast an election, they look at the polls, listen to the pundits or else check out the odds being offered by the bookmakers. Or, in the case of a US election, they could ask the people of Iowa’s Bremer County how they are planing to vote.

This county, 125 north east of the state capital Des Moines, is one of 19 counties across the United States that has voted for every single winning president since Ronald Reagan’s first victory in 1980. The perfect voting record from then until 2016 has seen them, and the country at large, place a Republican in the White House six times - 1980, 1984, 1988, 2000, 2004 and 2016 - and a Democrat on four occasions - 1992, 1996, 2008 and 2012.

And on the eve of the Iowa caucuses, the nation’s keenly contested, much-watched and deeply influential first vote of the presidential political cycle, an unscientific straw poll in Bremer County, suggested the 2020 race between Donald Trump and whomever Democrats eventually select as their candidate, will be a very closely-fought affair.

Six people said they were going to vote Republican, and six said Democrat, with five of the second group tending towards Bernie Sanders. A 13th person, consulted on the way out of town, said they had voted for Mr Trump in 2016 but would not do so this year because of the unpresidential way he had acted. Depending on who the Democrats selected, the person was considering voting for that party for the first time.

The Independent’s visit to the town of Waverly, the county seat and which has a population of 9,874 according to the latest census, came as people in Iowa are desperately searching for clues as to outcome of Monday night’s caucus, or primary. That process was not helped by a sudden decision by the Des Moines Register not to publish its traditional and highly respected eve of caucus poll, amid complaints from the camp of Pete Buttigieg, that their candidates name was not on the list of candidates read to some of the people polled.

“Nothing is more important to the Register and its polling partners than the integrity of the Iowa Poll,” Carol Hunter, the executive editor of the newspaper said. “Therefore, the partners made the difficult decision to not to move forward with releasing the Iowa poll.”

The most recent New York Times poll had Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders tied in Iowa for first place, ahead of Mr Buttigieg. Nationally, the poll put Mr Biden on 27 points, ahead of Mr Sanders, 24, Elizabath Warren, 14, and Michael Bloomberg on 8 points.

Iowa is notoriously difficult to poll, largely because of the caucus, or public vote, which takes place over the course of two hours on a freezing Monday and which you have to show up for in person. If you are working in the evening, if you live a long way from a caucus site, if you are sick, or if you would rather watch a film, your voting preferences count for nothing.

For all the talk about about the caucuses being an amazing experiment in democracy, many critics think it is deeply undemocratic. In 2016, less than 16 per cent of those people able to vote bothered to take part.

For Democrats, the situation is all the more uncertain this year because of the large number of candidates, and because of anxiety about choosing a candidate who can defeat Mr Trump, whom many here dislike intensely. (Republicans are also holding a caucus, but Mr Trump is all but certain to defeat the handful of challengers by a landslide.)

Indeed, even at this late stage, many Democrats are undecided who to opt for.

Such was the case with Jennifer Monaghan, 70, who was one of those people interviewed in the Village Square shopping strip. She said Mr Sanders was her first choice, with Ms Warren her second pick, if she has to “realign” at the caucuses, if her first choice fails to get 15 per cent.

“I want the strongest leader to beat Donald Trump,” said Ms Monaghan, a retired veterinary lab technician. “Most people have said they have never seen an election like this.”

Kurt Fay, a 19-year who was on a motorbike, lifted up his vizor to say he would be voting for Mr Trump. “I like capitalism more than socialism. And the economy is strong,” he said.

Kayla Kingery, 29, who was loading groceries into her car, said she had not fully decided, but was veering towards Mr Sanders. “I like him because he is very accepting of everyone,” she said.

Jerod Santee, 37, was certain who he was voting for. “Last time it was Trump, and this time it was Trump.”

Residents said Bremer County was a friendly place, where “everybody knows everybody”.

They said the partly rural county, which has a population of just under 25,000, has become something of a bedroom community for the city of Waterloo.

A John Deere tractor factory there, along with the University of Northern Iowa, were among the larger employers.

The town of Waverly itself has a Walmart, a municipal golf course and is home to Wartburg College, a private, Lutheran college that was established in Michigan in 1852 and relocated to Waverly in 1935. The Cedar River cuts through it.

The status of Bremer County as a political weather vane, was revealed by the Wall Street Journal, which said analysis of those places suggested they had educational attainment levels below the national average, along with slower-than-average population growth between 2010 and 2018. All but one of the counties have median household incomes below the national average and they tend to be older and much less diverse than the nation as a whole, it said.

Gary Buresh, 56, was sitting in Waverly’s McDonald’s as one of his three daughters ran around in the play area. He said the town was neither rich nor poor, but was genuinely a representation of a middle class.

He said his family had moved here ten years ago, because the schools were good. It was a peaceful place to live, yet near enough to a big city if they needed to hit the shops.

Mr Buresh, a registered Republican, said he had voted for Mr Trump in 2016, mainly because he did not want to vote for Hillary Clinton, who he said he did not trust. Yet he said he would not be voting for Mr Trump in 2020.

“I do not like the way he has behaved in office. I suspected that he might, but not as much as he has,” he said. “It’s very unprofessional…not the done thing.”

He said he had listened to all the Democrats and liked Mr Buttigieg and Andrew Yang. He thought Mr Sanders’ ideas were too extreme. He also liked Amy Klobuchar and Tom Steyer.

“I would like to vote for someone who thinks we’re all Americans,” he said. “We don’t seem to be able to do so these days.”

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