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Iowa has gone from purple to deep red.
Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa on Friday signed into law a controversial bill passed earlier this week by the state’s GOP-dominated legislature that sharply limits abortion.
The bill, which would ban most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, is the latest example of Iowa Republicans flexing their muscles in a state that over the past dozen years has transformed from a crucial general election battleground to solidly red, with the GOP in control of the governor’s office, both legislative chambers in the statehouse and Iowa’s entire congressional delegation.
Reynolds has signed laws this year that ban or significantly limit gender transition treatments for minors, allow families to use taxpayer money towards private-school tuition and loosen child labor rules in the state, as the GOP works to turn the onetime swing state into a bastion of conservatism.
NEW IOWA ABORTION BAN FACING LEGAL BATTLE
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds has led the state GOP to numerous conservative legislative victories as the state trends red. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
“Americans are taking notice as states around the country are looking to Iowa as a beacon for freedom and opportunity,” the governor wrote in a statement this spring as she touted what she described as an “historic” legislative session.
It wasn’t that long ago that Democrats were competitive in the state, controlling the governor’s office for a dozen straight years and one of the two U.S. Senate seats for three straight decades. But Democrats haven’t won a gubernatorial election since 2006 or a Senate contest since 2008.
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In the race for the White House, former President Barack Obama carried Iowa by nearly 10 points in 2008 and by six points in 2012. But four years later, former President Donald Trump captured the Hawkeye State by nine points in his White House victory. Trump…
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