Politics in Ames, IA is an interesting and dynamic topic. The city is located in Story County, which has both a Board of Supervisors and two County Commissioners who work to represent their constituents on various issues. At the state level, Ames falls into the 4th District in the Iowa House of Representatives and the 23rd District in the Iowa Senate. U.S. Representative Steve King also represents Ames at a federal level, along with Senators Joni Ernst and Charles Grassley. A number of local initiatives have been taken to help improve Ames’s political climate, such as increasing civic engagement by launching a series of forums designed to get residents more involved in their government. The city also encourages its citizens to vote and participate in elections by providing voter registration information online and conducting multiple candidate forums throughout the year. These efforts have proven effective in achieving greater representation for all voices in Ames politics, making it an ever-changing landscape that allows for different viewpoints to be heard and respected.
The political climate in Ames, IA is somewhat liberal.
Story County, IA is moderately liberal. In Story County, IA 57.2% of the people voted Democrat in the last presidential election, 39.9% voted for the Republican Party, and the remaining 3.0% voted Independent.
In the last Presidential election, Story county remained very strongly Democratic, 57.2% to 39.9%.
Story county voted Democratic in every Presidential election since 2000.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index
Ames, IA is somewhat liberal.
Story County, Iowa is moderately liberal.
Ames Metro Area is moderately 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.
Ames, 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 Ames, IA
In the last 4 years (2018-2021), there were 23,682 contributions totaling $1,972,186 to the Democratic Party and liberal campaigns, averaging $83 per contribution.
In the last 4 years, there were 2,256 contributions totaling $420,302 to the Republican Party and conservative campaigns, averaging $186 per contribution.
(source: Federal Election Commission)