This Iowa county made the biggest swing to Republican in the last 12 years. Here’s what voters there said is the reason

Editor’s Note: This story is the second in a series that looks at how and why Iowa voters moved away from Democrats and lined up behind President Donald Trump and other Republicans.

LIME SPRINGS — Unlike many people she grew up with, Sarah Barron lives in Howard County, where she was born and raised.

She initially moved away from the county of fewer than 10,000 people in northeast Iowa after graduating high school, eventually ending up in Fort Collins, Colorado, where she met her husband, Emmanuel Barron, and had three sons.

Wanting to escape city life and raise their kids in the country, Sarah and Emmanuel, both in their 30s, moved back to her hometown of Lime Springs in 2023 to be closer to her grandmother.

“I wanted to be in the country, I wanted to raise my kids like how I grew up,” Sarah said. “We were in the city, a little, teeny backyard. Now I'm like, ‘Go outside and play.’ And they're like, ‘By ourselves?’”

Sarah, a second grade teacher at her kids’ school in Riceville, and Emmanuel, an archaeologist in the nearby town of Cresco, like living in rural Iowa, where it’s quiet and affordable. Their children can grow up the way they did by playing outside in their vast backyard until dinnertime.

  Buy Photo

While she was away, Sarah didn’t expect things to change much in Howard County. But in 2016, the county garnered national attention for one key reason: its colossal political shift.

Out of Iowa’s 99 counties, Howard had the largest move rightward in the last 12 years, swinging 52.45 points toward Republicans in presidential elections. It’s a county that former President Barack Obama won twice and that went to President Donald Trump by more than 20 points in the last three elections. 2016 was the first time the county went to a Republican since former President Ronald Reagan in 1984.

And nationally, it saw the second-largest flip from Obama to Trump in the country.

After the 2016 election, national media flocked to the area, talking to locals and attempting to dissect Howard County and figure out why it, like many other rural counties across the country, took a sharp turn away from Democrats and toward Trump.

Howard County, which hugs Minnesota’s southern border, has just over 9,000 residents. The county is 93.88 percent non-Hispanic white, compared with the statewide average of roughly 83 percent. Just 18.7 percent of residents hold bachelor’s degrees, which is just over half of Iowa’s 31.5 percent degree attainment average. And the average annual household income is $67,336, below Iowa’s $71,433.

Neil Schaffer, chair of the Howard County Republican Party, says a lot of residents in the county lean more on the independent side and said the swing to Trump makes sense based on what he says is fatigue from the traditional political parties.

“We definitely are not party-driven, we're individually driven,” Schaffer said. “Not unlike a lot of rural areas, getting away from the traditional party that really never excited anyone too much. You know, we kind of held our nose and voted for McCain and … held our nose and voted for Romney.”

Schaffer, 58, lives west of Cresco on the farm where he grew up. He said many Howard County residents gravitated toward Trump because they viewed him as a different option from the status quo.

“People realized that it didn't really matter what party was in the White House or in Congress, it seemed like the same things were happening,” Schaffer said. “Debts continued to rise and spending continued to be out of control, and we continued to get into wars, and then Donald Trump came along.”

Gooder also knows of a voting bloc in the county that keeps their cards close to their chest and tend to switch back and forth between candidates.

“The middle is kind of left wide-open. We have a far-right policy in politics and a far-left policy and those people in the middle are like, I think, a little bit lost. Which party fits them?” Gooder said. “You also look at the people that prefer to be on the sidelines until you get to the election. So they're not going to attend a rally. They're not going to be involved. They get inside of the voting booth and they make that decision.”

With the 2026 midterms on the horizon, where Iowans will have a chance to vote in open elections for governor and U.S. Senate, Gooder said he thinks it's any party’s game depending on how they can break through to voters in rural Iowa.

“The pendulum will swing back,” Gooder said. “The pendulum always seems to swing in Iowa.”