- Kamala Harris leads Donald Trump in Iowa 47% to 44%, according to a shocking new poll released just three days before Election Day.
- The results of the Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa poll came as a complete surprise to political observers, as no serious analyst predicted the Democratic candidate would beat Trump in the state.
- “It’s hard for anyone to say they saw this coming,” said J. Ann Selzer, whose firm Selzer & Co. conducted the poll.
Kamala Harris led Donald Trump in Iowa, 47% to 44% among likely voters, according to a shocking new poll released Saturday night, just three days before Election Day.
Harris’ advantage is within the poll’s 3.4 percentage point margin of error, but her lead reflects a 7-point swing of voters in her favor since September.
The results of the Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa poll came as a complete surprise to political observers, as no serious analyst predicted the Democratic candidate would beat Trump in the state.
Neither candidate had campaigned in the state, which Trump easily won in the last two presidential elections since the end of the presidential primaries.
“It’s hard for anyone to say they saw this coming,” pollster J. Ann Selzer, president of Selzer & Co, told the Des Moines Register.
“She has clearly moved into a leadership position.”
Selzer & Co. conducted the survey of 808 likely voters in Iowa Monday through Thursday. Selzer’s company is highly respected by pollsters, and its findings typically carry considerable weight with political strategists.
Harris’ lead in the poll was bolstered by strong support from female voters, particularly older and politically independent ones.
“Age and gender are the two most dynamic factors driving these numbers,” Selzer told the Register.
The poll found that 3% of respondents support independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who ended his campaign to support Trump. Kennedy remains on the Iowa ballot.
The same September poll showed Trump leading Harris, the current vice president, by 4 percentage points. Trump led the president Joe Bidenthe then-presumptive Democratic nominee, by 18 percentage points in June.
Trump won the state by 8 percentage points in 2020 and 9 points in 2016.
The Republican campaign released a memo Saturday evening calling the poll an “outlier.”
The memo notes that Emerson College’s new poll of likely Iowa voters, released earlier Saturday, showed Trump leading Harris 53% to 43%.
Trump’s campaign memo said: “The Des Moines Register is a clear outlier poll. Emerson College, released today, reflects the state of Iowa’s actual electorate much more accurately and does so with much more transparency in its methodology. »
