Vice President Kamala Harris has made a dent in former President Donald Trump’s lead among likely Iowa voters in the most recent Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll. (Photos by Win McNamee and Megan Varner/Getty Images, photo illustration via Canva)
This story originally appeared on Iowa Capital Dispatch.
Vice President Kamala Harris has taken a narrow lead over former President Donald Trump in the latest Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll published Saturday, just days before the Nov. 5 election.
The results are a surprising development for the state, which has been largely written off as an easy victory for Trump. He won Iowa in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. The latest Iowa Poll showed Harris leading with 47% of likely voters and Trump with 44%, the Register reported.
The poll, taken Oct. 28-31 by Selzer & Co. with responses from 808 likely Iowa voters, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.
While Harris’ lead falls in the margin of error, it’s a significant reversal from previous Iowa Polls. In September, Trump led the Iowa Poll with 47% to Harris’ 43%. Trump had the support of 50% of likely Iowa voters in June when President Joe Biden was expected to become the Democratic presidential nominee.
Women, independents shift toward Harris
The largest shift heading toward support for Harris has been Iowa women – particularly women who identify as independent voters as well as those age 65 and older, the Register reported. More independent likely voters as a whole now support Harris at 46% to Trump at 39%, despite the demographic favoring Trump in every earlier Iowa Poll.
Independent women favored Harris in the September poll, with 40% supporting her and 35% supporting Trump. That lead grew in the latest poll to 57% of independent women who support Harris and 29% who support Trump.
More independent men still favor Trump over Harris at 47% to 37%.
While likely voters 65 and older also support Harris as a demographic, 63% of senior women support the vice president compared to 28% who support Trump – a more than 2-to-1 margin. More senior men also support Harris but by a margin of 2 percentage points at 47% to 45%.
Iowa Republican have stumped for Trump in swing states
Iowa Republicans have spent time on the campaign trail touting Trump’s popularity in the state and the expectation that the former president will win Iowa for the third election in a row — U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst and U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson, Iowa Republicans, have traveled to swing states like Pennsylvania and Georgia to rally voters in recent weeks, with Ernst saying Iowa was “in the bag” for Trump.
Though both Harris and Trump have spent most their time in key swing states ahead of the election, Iowa Democratic Party Chair Rita Hart told reporters Saturday that the poll results show that Iowa is a winnable state for Democrats in the upcoming election.
“We’ve been putting in the hard work, and it is paying off,” Hart said. “We’ve been educating our voters, recruiting volunteers, listening to friends’ and neighbors’ concerns, and we recognize that Iowans are looking for better leadership. The fact that Vice President Harris now leads Donald Trump in the latest Des Moines Register poll is obviously very exciting for us.”
Iowa GOP chair calls poll an ‘outlier’
But Iowa GOP Chair Jeff Kaufmann disputed the accuracy of the results, comparing the Des Moines Register’s poll results to one released by Emerson College earlier Saturday that showed Trump ahead at 53% to Harris at 43%.
“Des Moines Register is a clear outlier poll,” Kaufmann said in a statement. “Emerson College, released today, far more closely reflects the state of the actual Iowa electorate and does so with far more transparency in their methodology.”
House Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst argued that the Iowa Poll well respected, and should not be dismissed just because it does not show favorable results for one party.
“I’ve been in their shoes on a Saturday night before Election Day, where the Iowa poll results come out, and they don’t look like what we’d like them to (be),” Konfrst said. “And they can’t believe Ann Seltzer, one of the gold standard pollsters in the country, in 2020 and not in 2024.”
The poll also found Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the independent presidential candidate who remains on the Iowa ballot despite ending his campaign, still has the support of 3% of likely voters. Libertarian presidential candidate Chase Oliver earned less than 1% in the poll. Another 1% of respondents said they would vote for someone else, 3% responded that they were not sure who to support and 2% said they did not want to disclose who they supported.
Though the poll showed Harris in a favorable position for Tuesday, Hart said it was important to note that Iowa Poll results are not Election Day results. Konfrst said the poll is a welcome push giving “energy and enthusiasm and momentum” to Democratic voters and organizers leading up to Tuesday.
“We have three more days before this election, so remember, this is just a poll, and what really matters is that Iowans show up and make their voices heard,” Hart said.
Democrats say poll supports argument for more national help
In the final days before the election, Konfrst said that she and other Democrats are having conversations about the poll with the national party and supporting Democratic organizations, hoping to get support and surrogate visits ahead of Election Day.
“We’re going to be asking as many folks as we can to be surrogates here, but at the end of the day, we know that it’s the hard work of volunteers, our candidates up and down the ballot, the Congressional candidates and the party and all of our partners here in Iowa who are doing that hard work,” Konfrst said. “And so, surrogate or not, we think that we’re going to have a better night than expected for Kamala Harris and Democrats on Tuesday.”
Hart also said that Iowa’s decision in the 2024 presidential election could have major implications for the future of the Iowa Democratic caucuses. Iowa was ousted from its first-in-the-nation seat in the 2024 Democratic presidential nominating cycle and released its mail-in caucus results on Super Tuesday supporting Biden this year. The nominating calendar will be up for discussion again heading into 2028, and Hart said Nov. 5 results will have a crucial impact on Iowa Democrats’ argument to return to return as an early state in future elections.
“Once this election is over, we’re going to be having this conversation,” Hart said. “And the better we do here in November, the better case we can make. … The bottom line is that I hope this shows the rest of the country that Iowa is a good barometer for choosing good leadership.”
Iowa Capital Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions: info@iowacapitaldispatch.com. Follow Iowa Capital Dispatch on Facebook and X.
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