When people think of Iowa, if they think of it at all, they think of it as a place where grandparents live. Where there is pink carpet in the bathroom, green bean casserole on the table for Thanksgiving, and Folgers brewing in the coffee pot that grandma got before you were born but won’t replace because it’s still working. They just don’t make things like they used to. Iowa means being sent home with a Ziploc bag of cookies and a Tupperware of leftovers. Iowa is baseball and corn and gas station pizza.
And Iowa is nice. We pride ourselves on our kindness — the way we hold open doors and apologize even when the other person is in our way.
Iowa isn’t the place people think of when they think of a hotbed of roiling rage.
Iowa isn’t the place people think of when they think of a hotbed of roiling rage.
But I need to tell you something: Your grandma back in Iowa is pissed. She’s furious. And, depending on his views about reproductive justice, she may be fighting with your grandpa.
A poll released Saturday by Selzer & Co. found that Trump was down 19 points among seniors in Iowa. The senior women polled were, by a margin of more than two to one, supporting Harris: 63% to 28%. Iowa’s senior men also favored Harris, but by only 2 percentage points: 47% to 45%. According to the Des Moines Register, “The poll shows that women — particularly those who are older or who are politically independent — are driving the late shift toward Harris.”
That trend shifted in Trump’s favor with Trump winning the state, and the presidential re-election, per NBC News projection. Still, when results at one point showed Harris was leading Trump 47%-44% in deep red Iowa, it shocked the nation. Neither candidate has campaigned in Iowa since the primaries. Iowa is a rapidly aging state with approximately 1.1 million people age 50 or older, and Trump won it by 8 points in 2020. All of our U.S. House members and senators are Republican, we have a Republican governor, and Republicans control the state House. Conventional political wisdom held that it was a given that Trump would win Iowa in a cakewalk.
Harris did not win Iowa. But the the anger of our mothers and grandmothers, their rage at being once again forced into a role of second-class citizens by politicians who see us as nothing more than incubators for a future tax base is not to be discounted. The states’ grandmas remember who had to go to Mexico for an abortion, who got life-threatening infections and who was stuck on a farm raising kids, unable to leave her husband, or even take out a line of credit. Women 65 and older, these radical grandmas, they are the second wave of feminists who fought for reproductive rights, and now they have to do it all over again.
On June 28, the Iowa State Supreme Court upheld an almost near-total abortion ban. Although there are carve-outs for rape and incest and the life of the mother, experts and doctors have pointed out that those exceptions exist in name only. Iowa is also a state that ranks 50th in the nation for OB-GYN access (meaning, we have the fewest such doctors per capita) and we have a maternal mortality rate that was rising even before the 2022 Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. What is happening in Iowa isn’t a new reality, but an old one. And Iowans, the majority of whom support access to abortion in all or most circumstances, remember what it was like before we had this right.
Greta Mullberg, a resident of Marion, told me via email, “I’m 75 and I remember. more than one friend had an abortion. They had to go to Puerto Rico for that. you had to have money and, even then, the conditions weren’t great. One friend got a vicious infection and was never able to have children. we won’t go back!!!”
In 2020, Beverly Young, then 82, told me about the humiliation of trying to get a prescription for birth control in 1963 and being asked if she had permission from her husband. She remembers friends getting abortions before they were legal and enduring the pain and the fear.
Speaking of women who are 65 or older and voting for Harris, Liz Flemming, an Iowa activist, wrote on Threads on Sunday, “My mother is one of these women. A lot of our mothers are these women. They saw Roe v. Wade pass in 1973 and then watched their daughters and granddaughters lose this right in 2022. Then, they saw our state and legislature disregard our health and freedom to pass a 6-week abortion ban that is already hurting us.” Whatever platitudes and reassurances Republicans try to use to assuage women ring hollow because Iowans remember the realities of the past, now borne out in headlines about women dying because they couldn’t access the necessary health care. Whatever platitudes and reassurances Republicans try to use to assuage women ring hollow because Iowans remember the realities of the past. Kira Barker, executive director for Polk County Democrats, who had been door-knocking and organizing for Democratic candidates, told me that another motivating factor was that Iowans became ground zero for the Project 2025 agenda. In addition to passing an abortion ban, Republicans have shoved through a school voucher program and made cuts to SNAP benefits, all portions of the conservative plan, and people just plain don’t like it. Democratic state Sen. Megan Srinivas, a doctor, also points out that Iowa has in the past been a swing state. She noted that the elected officials and party organizers have switched to a “bottom-up” approach to messaging, that emphasizes the issues voters care about rather than the “top-down” message from the party. “Iowans are truly purple, striving to do what’s best for their families and communities rather than being tied to party identity.” And yet, NBC News exit polls found that male first-time voters went for Trump over Harris 62%-36% — a striking difference. The people who remember what the past was truly like will do their gosh darn Iowa best to try to make sure we don’t go back there again. But if this election is any indication, the fight is far from over.
Lyz Lenz is the author of the book "This American Ex-Wife." She lives in Iowa and writes the newsletter “Men Yell at Me.” 
