Iowa poll showing Harris in lead shocks country, could point to late Democratic momentum

The country is reeling after the new Iowa Poll had Harris 3 percentage points ahead of Trump in Iowa. Just days before the 2024 election, the Hawkeye State is on the map.

Saturday afternoon, Iowa GOP Chair Jeff Kaufmann was excited. The new Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll was coming out and he was ready to correct the record. 

Recent polling wasn’t going his way. Back in June, Donald Trump dominated President Joe Biden among Iowans by 18 points. But in September, the race had tightened. With Vice President Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket, the Iowa Poll had Trump leading Harris by just 4 percentage points in a state he won by 8 points in 2020.

Two hours before the new poll dropped, Kaufmann tweeted, “This happens every cycle, and this time will be no different. Everyone knew the ‘4 point margin’ was nonsense.”

As it turned out, he was wrong. 

Saturday’s Iowa Poll showed Harris leading Trump 47% to 44% among likely voters, a lead that is  still within the margin of error. The bombshell was a surprise since neither candidate is treating Iowa as a particularly competitive state.

Harris is strong among Iowa independents and women. The poll showed independent women backing Harris by a 28-point margin and senior women supporting her by a 2-to-1 margin. That support tracks also with Iowa independents and seniors generally who are breaking for Harris at higher rates than previous polls showed. The senior demographic is particularly important since seniors say they are more likely to vote now than they were when polled in September.

Among voters younger than 35, 46% say they support Harris; 44% support Trump.

97% of Iowa Democrats say they will support Harris, and 0% say they will support Trump. 89% of Iowa Republicans say they will support Trump. 5% say they will vote for Harris. 

The poll showed 51% of likely Harris voters said they were thinking about “the future of democracy” when deciding to support Harris. Another 22% said “abortion.”

Who would have thought that a near-total abortion ban, a costly private school voucher program, and new policies to discourage auditing of government corruption would leave Iowans wondering if Republicans should lead the country?

“I recognize that the folks here in Iowa are smart and they know the difference between a poll and the results of an election. Remember, this is just a poll and what really matters is that Iowans show up and make their voices heard,” Iowa Democratic Party Chair Rita Hart said.

The media response to the results was tremendous. Politico’s Steven Shepard wrote even if Harris doesn’t win Iowa this could be an important gauge of Democratic strength throughout the Midwest.

“The poll could presage greater-than-expected strength for the Democratic nominee in states with similar demographic profiles that are part of the battleground mix, like Wisconsin,” Shepard wrote.

In their writeup of the poll in Split Ticket, Max McCall and Lakshya Jain wrote that the poll is an outlier, but it comes from the well-regarded J. Ann Selzer. 

“It is possible that this becomes the first Selzer poll to seriously miss, through no fault of its own—again, sampling error can be unavoidable. On the other hand, perhaps Selzer is once again correct, and pollsters have been seriously underestimating Harris, an outcome that would remind people, at the very least, that polling error is unpredictable.”

Iowa GOP Chair Jeff Kaufmann also weighed in again after the poll—this time less excited.

“The @DMRegister & @jaselzer just lost any shred of credibility they had left. This should be classified as spreading propaganda with polling like this. It’s sad to watch how far they’ve fallen,” Kaufmann tweeted. “President Trump will win Iowa.”

The Iowa Poll conducted by Selzer & Company from October 28-31 polled 808 likely Iowa voters, which includes those who have already voted, as well as those who say they plan to vote. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.