Rural areas are no longer blinded by Urban run Media.
Talk radio and the Internet have freed them from that dependence.
Barack Obama’s Presidency demonstrated to them the utter corruption of the establishment, elite, urban media.
The large cities are still in thrall to that media, but they will come around. There are two many sources for information now, for people to be satisfied with obvious lies.
Eastern Iowa has tons of older smokestack cities/towns that have been deindustralized. As the union members there pass, eastern Iowa may grow more conservative. Plus the ‘Rats have done nothing for them for decades.