West Des Moines, IA has a strong political presence. The city is currently represented in the Iowa State House of Representatives by Members Rob Bacon, Jake Highfill, Jo Oldson, Kenan Judge, and Matt Windschitl. These representatives are committed to providing the citizens of West Des Moines with quality representation and creating meaningful policies that will benefit the people of West Des Moines. Additionally, the city holds a variety of local elections throughout the year in order to elect officials at the municipal level. This ensures that residents have important input on how their needs are addressed by local government. The city often also holds public forums where local politicians can discuss important topics with their constituents and answer any questions or concerns they may have about current issues.
The political climate in West Des Moines, IA is somewhat liberal.
Polk County, IA is somewhat liberal. In Polk County, IA 56.5% of the people voted Democrat in the last presidential election, 41.3% voted for the Republican Party, and the remaining 2.2% voted Independent.
In the last Presidential election, Polk county remained very strongly Democratic, 56.5% to 41.3%.
Polk county voted Democratic in every Presidential election since 2000.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index
West Des Moines, IA is somewhat liberal.
Polk County, Iowa is somewhat liberal.
Des Moines-West Des Moines Metro Area is somewhat liberal.
Iowa is leaning conservative.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index is based on recent voting in national elections, federal campaign contributions by local residents, and consumer personality profiles.
VoteWord™
Displaying 20 years of Presidential voting, visualized in one word.
West Des Moines, Iowa: d d D D D D
How It Works:
Here at BestPlaces, we were looking at the voting patterns since the 2000 election and realized that we could express the results of each election as one letter. R if the Republican Party candidate won, D if the Democratic Party candidate won and I if the Independent Party candidate won. The six elections (2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020) would be expressed as six-letter word (R R D R R).
Then we went a little further and added the dimension of magnitude. If the difference of victory was greater than 10 percent, the letter is upper case, and lower case if the difference was less than 10 percent. This allows us to see interesting voting patterns at just a glance.
Here's the VoteWord for Iowa d r d d r. In the last six elections the state has been closely contested, voting narrowly for the Republican Party candidate in 2016 and 2020 after voting for the Democratic Party in 2008 and 2012. Virginia (r r d d d D) has voted for the Democratic Party in the last three elections.
Individual Campaign Contributions in West Des Moines, IA
In the last 4 years (2018-2021), there were 14,006 contributions totaling $3,434,024 to the Democratic Party and liberal campaigns, averaging $245 per contribution.
In the last 4 years, there were 4,690 contributions totaling $3,754,485 to the Republican Party and conservative campaigns, averaging $801 per contribution.
(source: Federal Election Commission)