Editing Midwestern United States (section)

=== West North Central ===
The Great Plains states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas have been strongholds for the Republicans for many decades. These four states have gone for the Republican candidate in every presidential election since 1940, except for [[Lyndon B. Johnson]]'s landslide over [[Barry Goldwater]] in [[1964 United States presidential election|1964]]. Although North Dakota and South Dakota have often elected Democrats to Congress, after the 2012 election both states' congressional delegations are majority Republican. Nebraska has elected Democrats to the Senate and as governor in recent years, but both of its senators have been Republican since the retirement of [[Ben Nelson]] in 2012. Kansas has elected a majority of Democrats as governor since 1956, but has not elected a Democratic senator since 1932. From 1997 to 2010 and again since 2019, Kansas has had at least one Democratic House member (two in 2007 and '08).

Iowa had a Democratic governor from 1999 until [[Terry Branstad]] was re-elected in the mid-term elections in 2010, and has had both one Democratic and one Republican senator since the early 1980s until the 2014 election when Republican [[Joni Ernst]] defeated Democrat [[Bruce Braley]] in a tightly contested race.<ref>{{cite web|title = Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections|url = http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/|website = uselectionatlas.org|access-date = February 15, 2016|first = David|last = Leip}}</ref> Between 1988 and 2012, Iowa also voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in all elections except 2004 (backing [[George W. Bush]] by less than 1%), but in 2016 and 2020 [[Donald Trump]] won the state by about 9 and 8 percentage points, respectively. Since the 2016 elections, Republicans have held a majority in both houses of the [[Iowa General Assembly]]. Following the [[2022 Iowa elections|2022 elections]], Iowa is considered a [[Red states and blue states|red state]] as Republicans hold all but one statewide office, both U.S. Senate seats, all four U.S. House seats, and Republican governor [[Kim Reynolds]] was [[2022 Iowa gubernatorial election|reelected]] by a margin of nearly 20 points. Trump won Iowa for a third time in 2024, this time by more than 13 percentage points, the largest margin of victory for a Republican in the state since [[Richard Nixon]] in 1972.

Minnesota voters have not voted for a Republican candidate for president since 1972, longer than any other state. Minnesota was the only state (along with Washington, D.C.) to vote for its native son [[Walter Mondale]] over [[Ronald Reagan]] in 1984. However, recent Democratic victories have often been fairly narrow, such as the [[2016 United States Presidential Election|2016 presidential election]]. The Democratic Party narrowly controls the [[Minnesota legislature|Minnesota state legislature]] as well as [[Governor of Minnesota|the governor's office]] as of 2024, but the [[Minnesota House of Representatives|State House]] will be evenly split 67-67 beginning in 2025. The Minnesota congressional delegation has 2 Democratic Senators but [[United States congressional delegations from Minnesota|a 4-4 evenly split U.S. House delegation]].

Missouri was historically considered a bellwether state, having voted for the winner in every presidential election from 1904 to 2004 except for [[1956 United States presidential election in Missouri|1956]], when it backed losing Democrat [[Adlai Stevenson II|Adlai Stevenson]] by 0.22% and less than 4,000 votes. Democrats generally only hold sway in the large cities at the opposite ends of the state, Kansas City and St. Louis, with the Republicans winning the rest of the state. Since the 2012 elections, Republicans have had a 6–2 majority in the state's [[United States congressional delegations from Missouri|U.S. House delegation]], with African-American Democrats representing the two major cities. Missouri has had a Republican governor since the 2016 elections, as well as both U.S. Senators being Republican since the [[2018 United States Senate elections]]. As of 2023, Republicans have supermajorities in both houses of the [[Missouri General Assembly]].