The city of Cedar Rapids, IA is home to a strong and vibrant political landscape. Located in Linn County, Cedar Rapids is home to more than 130,000 people and is the second-largest city in Iowa. Elected officials represent the citizens at both the state and local levels. At the local level, Cedar Rapids has a mayor-council form of government. The mayor is elected at-large for four-year terms, while nine members of the city council are each elected from one of nine wards in the city. Together they are responsible for enacting ordinances and policies that affect everyday life in Cedar Rapids. Additionally, many other opportunities exist for citizens to get involved in politics by volunteering as poll workers or party representatives during elections or even running for office themselves. No matter what their political beliefs may be, residents of Cedar Rapids can find ways to engage with their local politics.
The political climate in Zip 52404 (Cedar Rapids, IA) is somewhat liberal.
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
Zip 52404 (Cedar Rapids, IA) is somewhat liberal.
Cedar Rapids, Iowa is somewhat liberal.
Linn County, Iowa 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.
Cedar Rapids, 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 zip 52404 (Cedar Rapids)
In the last 4 years (2018-2021), there were 669 contributions totaling $28,247 to the Democratic Party and liberal campaigns, averaging $42 per contribution.
In the last 4 years, there were 156 contributions totaling $58,951 to the Republican Party and conservative campaigns, averaging $378 per contribution.
(source: Federal Election Commission)