Iowa Poll From ‘Best Pollster In Politics’: Kamala Harris Ahead 47-44

The Des Moines Register:

Kamala Harris now leads Donald Trump in Iowa — a startling reversal for Democrats and Republicans who have all but written off the state’s presidential contest as a certain Trump victory.

A new Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll shows Vice President Harris leading former President Trump 47% to 44% among likely voters just days before a high-stakes election that appears deadlocked in key battleground states. The results follow a September Iowa Poll that showed Trump with a 4-point lead over Harris and a June Iowa Poll showing him with an 18-point lead over Democratic President Joe Biden, who was the presumed Democratic nominee at the time.

“It’s hard for anybody to say they saw this coming,” said pollster J. Ann Selzer, president of Selzer & Co. “She has clearly leaped into a leading position.” [...]

The poll shows that women — particularly those who are older or who are politically independent — are driving the late shift toward Harris.

No poll guarantees anything, of course, but this one stands out. If it holds up, Harris is on her way to a clear victory. It also explains Harris’s increasingly sunny demeanor down the stretch and Trump’s increasingly erratic and desperate antics, like dressing up as a garbage man last week. Selzer is widely regarded as one of the best pollsters in America, if not the best. Her eve-of-election 2016 Iowa poll was an outlier, predicting Trump would beat Hillary Clinton by 7 points; Trump won Iowa by 9 points that year. In 2020, Selzer’s closing poll had Trump ahead of Biden by 7; he won the state by 8.

The explanation for Harris’s surprise strength in Iowa — that women have had enough of Trump and his shithead revanchist misogynist party — holds water. If this poll is wrong, I still like Harris’s chances. If this poll is right, it’s in the bag for Harris.

Iowa doesn’t get counted as a “swing state”, perhaps because Trump won it by such significant margins in 2016 and 2020, but in recent elections has swung back and forth by large margins:

  • 2020: 🟥 Trump by 8.2
  • 2016: 🟥 Trump by 9.5
  • 2012: 🟦 Obama by 5.8
  • 2008: 🟦 Obama by 9.5
  • 2004: 🟥 W. by 0.7
  • 2000: 🟦 Gore by 0.3
  • 1996: 🟦 Clinton by 10.4
  • 1992: 🟦 Clinton by 6.0

And if you want to go back to what’s effectively now electoral pre-history, Mike Dukakis won Iowa by 10.2 points in 1988.

Keep the faith. Be sure to vote.

★ Sunday, 3 November 2024