Orange City, Iowa — A conservative news website and weekly magazine says Donald Trump’s worst county, was also his best. The county? Sioux County Iowa.
The Washington Examiner did an article on Democratic Presidential Candidate Pete Buttigieg’s visit to Orange City recently. The article, by Timothy P. Carney says Buttigieg came to the most Republican county in Iowa to scare up supporters in this conservative, rural corner of the state.
The article goes on to say:
Why would the Democrat throw a pre-caucus rally out here? It’s because these voters represent a different type of conservative. And Buttigieg, who regularly ties his faith to the virtues of compassion and love, thinks that in the Trump era, he can get the Christian conservatives in the tight-knit communities around here to become Democrats for a night.
The complexity of Sioux County can be summed up in a pair of numbers: It was Trump’s best county in the 2016 general election, after being his worst county in the 2016 caucuses.
Conor Kennedy, a grandson of Robert F. Kennedy, was the first speaker at Buttigieg’s rally at the Prairie Winds Event Center on the outskirts of Orange City. Folks back east warned him about Sioux County: “That everyone out here was Dutch, and that I shouldn’t expect to be welcomed as an Irish Catholic from New England.” He was also warned that he’d have to drive a good distance between Democratic households.
Sioux County welcomed Kennedy warmly because it welcomes nearly everyone warmly. But the rest of Kennedy’s analysis was correct. Sioux is the Dutch-est county in America, with 46% claiming Dutch ancestry, according to the Census Bureau. And it is very Republican. As the Buttigieg campaign informed reporters, “In 2016, Sioux County voted for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton by the largest margin in Iowa:” 80% to 12%.
Yet it was Trump’s worst county in the caucuses: He pulled in less than 11%, finishing fourth, and losing every single precinct in the county.
“Everyone blames us for Trump,” Mark Muilenburg told me before Buttigieg’s rally, “but Sioux County Republicans are pretty normal.”
Muilenburg and his wife Lisa both caucused for Marco Rubio in 2016 (Rubio won Orange City, Ted Cruz carried Sioux County), and couldn’t bring themselves to support Trump in the general. They say they wrote in Rubio in November 2016 and that many of their neighbors did something similar.
“If you go back to 2016 in Sioux County,” Muilenburg said before the Buttigieg rally, “you probably couldn’t find 10 Trump signs. Because people, they still voted for him maybe because he was the Republican candidate, but a lot of people were like us, who wrote in somebody else.”
Indeed, even while Clinton did worse than President Barack Obama here, Trump got slightly lower percentages than John McCain or Mitt Romney.
“People around this area are more Reagan conservative, and Bush, than they are Trump,” said Lyle Vanden Berg, a Democrat from neighboring O’Brien County.
What makes Sioux County conservatives different? It’s probably that their faith is slightly different and that their communities are slightly stronger.
The Reformed Church in America and Christian Reformed Church dominate the county. Dutch emigres founded both churches in the 19th century. All the Dutch reformed churches are extraordinary at building tight-knit communities, preaching compassion, and fostering family formation.
Although white evangelicals in most of the country supported Trump in the early primaries, this one corner of the religious Right took a lot longer to come around to him.
Art and Doris, an 86-year-old couple in Orange City attend First Reformed Church in Orange City. “A majority in our church are Republicans,” they say, but their pastor slips in subtle messages to steer them away from Trump’s worst tendencies. One recent sermon mocked the idea that Jesus wants us to “destroy” our enemies on Twitter. Another focused on the need for truthfulness.
Kathy Winter, the Democratic chairwoman in Osceola County, just northeast of Sioux County, thinks Trump’s behavior grates on the Dutch Reformed sensibilities, even among die-hard Republicans. “I do think that Trump’s disgusting, piggish ways, for lack of a nicer term … that what he says offends, even some of the people around here.”
Where are Sioux County voters now, when it comes to presidential politics? Mostly behind Trump.
“Now they’re all Trumpers completely,” said Dee, who came to the Buttigieg rally from neighboring Lyon County with her friend Corinne.
Muilenburg tries to put some nuance on the question: “There are a lot of people lining up now, because of his policies. Again, nobody is supportive of his approach or his, you know, personality on these things. But there are a lot of people that are gonna pull the lever for Donald Trump because they have jobs.”
There are a few Republican voters that Buttigieg can get to caucus for him. Muilenburg might show up for Buttigieg on Feb. 3. Corinne, from Doon, Iowa, caucused for John Kasich in 2016, when she was a registered Republican, “Until Trump got in, and I said ‘get me the hell out of that party.” She was at Buttigieg’s rally, and she’s leaning toward him now.
Numerically, though, you won’t find too many Never Trump Christian conservative Republicans crossing over to the Democratic caucuses. You have to look elsewhere to see whether the Sioux County exceptionalism from February 2016 still exists. The Republican primary for the 4th Congressional district will provide a test of that.
Congressman Steve King has come to embody a lot of the Trumpian traits that most clash with the values of Sioux County. King has been virulently anti-immigration, while the Dutch Reformed churches tend to be very welcoming of refugees. King has also defended white nationalism, and now he’s getting a serious challenge from a Sioux County native.
Randy Feenstra is a state senator from Hull, just north of Orange City. (The -stra ending is very typical of Dutch names.) He is currently dominating King 20 to 1 in fundraising from Orange City and Sioux Center, the largest city in Sioux County. Feenstra has brought in $60,000 from the two cities, according to Federal Election Commission data, compared to King’s $3,000.
If King loses his primary in 2020, there’s a good chance it will be because of the religious Right voters in Trump’s best county — which was also his worst county.
The article first appeared on the Washington Examiner‘s site.
