What a Trump-district Democrat can teach her colleagues about how to win

President Joe Biden heads to Des Moines, Iowa today to talk about fighting inflation and touting the bipartisan infrastructure bill. While Des Moines itself, like many state capitals, is fairly liberal, Iowa’s 3rd district actually voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020, after it had voted for Barack Obama twice. Trump’s triumph in the 3rd was an indicator of Iowa’s rightward swing as a whole.

Nobody knows this better than Cindy Axne, the Democratic representative for the state’s 3rd district. Axne first won her race as part of the 2018 blue wave that swept in a slew of Democrats nationwide. Then in 2020, despite Trump winning her district, she accomplished something increasingly rare: she won over some of his voters through split-ticket voting. According to the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, she represents one of only 16 crossover districts, which is to say a district that voted for a member of Congress opposite of how it voted for president. By comparison, that same year, her fellow Democratic Representative Abby Finkenauer, who had also won in 2018, lost to Representative Ashley Hinson in Iowa’s 1st District.

When your reporter asks people what makes Axne so special and able to do so well, the most common answer is “she works hard”. When I spoke with her last year in October in the midst of the inter-Democratic fracas about whether to pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill before Build Back better, she specifically mentioned her accessibility too.

“I held 67 town halls in the first year, I think. Visited all 16 counties every month and actually started that before I was even sworn in, started it after I won. And it’s really about being down there and talking to folks,” she told me. She also noted how she is on the radio every day “so that they’re not hearing it from some other outside entity, but they get to hear from me the bills that I’m working on that directly impact... their lives. So I’ll be honest. It’s about hard work and being out there with the people.”

Axne also aggressively focused on economic issues. The night in November that Democrats were supposed to vote on Build Back Better in the House — before House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy began his hours-long rant that delayed the vote until the next day — when your reporter asked if she was going to vote for it, Axne said, "Hell yes, I’m a yes on this bill.” When asked if she would campaign on it, she said, “Absolutely, and I will have the president right next to me.”

Of course, Biden’s approval rating is now in the tank and Senator Joe Manchin eventually killed Build Back Better a month later. Similarly, Axne faces different headwinds than when she ran. Back in 2018, voters were largely dissatisfied with Trump and 2020 was a presidential year. Now, Axne represents the same party as the incumbent president — putting her in a difficult position regardless, but especially in Iowa, where only 35 percent of adults approve of Biden’s job performance, according to a Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll from last month.

These obstacles will serve as a test for whether Democrats can still appeal to Trump voters in crossover districts.