Linn County, Iowa is located in the eastern region of Iowa, and is home to over 210,000 people. It is governed by a five-member Board of Supervisors, who are responsible for establishing local laws and policies that affect the county. The county is also served by several state representatives and senators who represent the county at large in the Iowa State Legislature. In addition to local officials, there are numerous political organizations that actively work within Linn County to influence public policy decisions. These organizations include the Linn County Democratic Party, Linn County Republican Party, as well as smaller municipal parties such as the Cedar Rapids City Council and Marion City Council. With so many political forces at play in Linn County, it's no wonder why it has become an important hub for political activity in the state of Iowa.
The political climate in Linn County, IA is somewhat liberal.
In Linn County, IA 55.6% of the people voted Democrat in the last presidential election, 41.9% voted for the Republican Party, and the remaining 2.5% voted Independent.
In the last Presidential election, Linn county remained strongly Democratic, 55.6% to 41.9%.
Linn county voted Democratic in every Presidential election since 2000.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index
Linn County, IA is somewhat liberal.
Cedar Rapids Metro Area is leaning 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.
Linn, 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 for the Democrat and I for the Independent. 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 Linn County, IA
In the last 4 years (2018-2021), there were 11,773 contributions totaling $1,166,122 to the Democratic Party and liberal campaigns, averaging $99 per contribution.
In the last 4 years, there were 2,825 contributions totaling $904,027 to the Republican Party and conservative campaigns, averaging $320 per contribution.
(source: Federal Election Commission)