Iowa 2020 election results: Trump projected winner

Polls close at 10 p.m. ET, and mail-in ballots must have been postmarked by November 2 and returned by November 9 — or received by the time polls close. Iowa also held an early in-person voting period that began on October 5 and ended on November 2. 

While county auditors can start processing ballots on the day before Election Day, counting can only begin on Election Day, at a time determined by the election commissioner so that absentee ballots can be counted by 10 p.m.

Before Election Day, 996,981 had already voted in Iowa. 

Iowa has 99 counties, and in 2016, Donald Trump won 93 of them, including all of its rural counties. Exit polls show Mr. Trump won rural voters 63% to 33%. Thirty-six percent of the state's 3.2 million people live in rural areas, and 64% reside in urban cities and suburbs.

Iowa had 31 counties that voted for President Obama — twice — and then flipped to vote for Mr. Trump; it has more counties that made this pivot than any other state. 

The eastern edge and southeastern part of the state is a traditionally blue-collar, working class area. Many of the counties along the river were Obama-to-Trump counties and some are traditional Democratic strongholds that went Republican in 2016 for the first time in decades. Notably, Dubuque County voted Republican for the first time since Dwight Eisenhower's election in 1952. 

In 2016, exit polls showed Mr. Trump won White voters without college degrees 58% to 38%. CBS News' latest poll shows Mr. Trump was still leading among these voters, albeit by a smaller margin of 54% to 43%. He also continues to draw strong support from White evangelicals, a group that made up a third of Iowa's electorate in 2016. 

But Biden seemed to be on track to outperform Hillary Clinton among White college-educated voters, a group Mr. Trump narrowly won, according to CBS News' October 11 Battleground Tracker poll. Exit polls in 2016 showed Mr. Trump won White college graduates 49% to 44%. CBS News polling before Election Day showed Biden leading among these voters 55% to 43%. 

Biden is also expected to cut into Mr. Trump's margins with men. In pre-election polling, Biden trailed the president by 9 points among men, but Mr. Trump won this group by 28 points four years ago. 

Mr. Trump also won suburban voters 51% to 42% in 2016, and he carried independents by 13 points, 51% to 38%, according to exit polls. CBS News' polling before Election Day showed Biden leading 49% to 45% among independents. 

Over one in five (22%) Iowa voters are over the age of 65. CBS News' polling in October found that among likely voters in this age group, Mr. Trump had 4-point edge, 51% to 47%, which is precisely the margin he had in 2016, according to exit polling.

First-term Republican Senator Joni Ernst is trying to win reelection against Democrat Theresa Greenfield in a tight race that could be a key factor in determining who controls the Senate.

Though Greenfield is a political neophyte, she has earned the endorsement of three Iowa newspapers, including the Des Moines Register, which said of the Iowa businesswoman, "Theresa Greenfield is not a practiced politician. That makes her all the more appealing to represent Iowans in the U.S. Senate." The editorial board criticized Ernst for her support of the GOP tax cut, her defense of President Trump during his impeachment and for casting doubt on the count of people who have died of COVID-19.

Greenfield has raised far more than Ernst — $28.7 million in the third quarter — and she could end up outspending Ernst by more than $25 million by Election Day. Polls show this race is tight, and the Cook Political Report rates this race as a "toss-up."

Coronavirus

CBS News' most recent polling before the election showed 62% of Iowans said the coronavirus outbreak is a major factor in their vote for president, but it was still behind the economy (78%), healthcare (75%), and the Supreme Court (63%). More voters in Iowa feel Biden would do a better job of handling the outbreak (49%) than Mr. Trump (40%). By early October, Iowa had a COVID-19 positivity rate of over 10%, and 47% of adults 18-40 are testing positive for the coronavirus in Iowa.

Climate change

Floods in eastern and western Iowa in early 2019 made climate change a larger part of the conversation in the state. Floods and heavy rainfall prevented farmers from planting a record 19.6 million acres of crops last year. Iowans along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers braced for more flooding in 2020, though there was less flooding this year. But the summer of 2020 brought a derecho that decimated over 40% of the state's corn and soybean crop. The damage was so extensive that it could be seen from space. The Des Moines Register noted damage to homes, farms, businesses will cost $4 billion.

Trade 

Iowa's GDP grew more than 4% in the first two quarters of 2018. But in July 2018, when President Trump imposed the first set of tariffs on Chinese goods, Iowa's GDP growth started to shrink rapidly before contracting 2% in the final months of 2018. 

China responded to the tariffs with levies on U.S. products like corn and soybeans, Iowa's two biggest crops. Since trade wars with China began, the administration has given farmers $12 billion in aid to help offset the losses. The following year, farmers received another $16 billion in aid, including $1.4 billion set aside for the government to purchase products like pork, beef, and dairy.  

In January, after two years of negotiations, the U.S. and China signed a trade agreement. Under Phase One of that deal, China agreed to purchase $50 billion in U.S. agriculture products, a boost for Iowa farmers. The trade agreement between the U.S., Mexico and Canada was also ratified, and Mr. Trump hailed it as another win for farmers. Then the coronavirus hit, and Iowa's GDP shrunk by more than 30% in the second quarter of 2020. In May, the USDA announced it was providing $16 billion in direct payments to farmers because of the coronavirus. That was followed by an additional $14 billion in September.