US election campaign: Poll sees Harris ahead of Trump in conservative Iowa

Shortly before the US presidential election, a new survey is causing a stir: According to it, Democrat Kamala Harris is ahead of her rival Donald Trump in the conservative state of Iowa. In the survey by the regional newspaper “Des Moines Register” in collaboration with Mediacom Iowa Poll and the polling institute Selzer & Company, 47 percent of the likely voters surveyed said they wanted to vote for Harris – 44 percent would vote for Trump. Harris’ lead is within the margin of error of 3.4 percentage points.

In September, Harris was still behind Trump

Iowa is currently considered a Republican-voting state. The last victory by a Democrat was that of Barack Obama – he won the state in 2008 and 2012. Trump won there in both 2016 and 2020. 808 likely voters took part in the current survey and was carried out from October 28th to 31st. The relatively small number of respondents is not unusual in such surveys.

A September poll by the Des Moines Register showed Trump four percentage points ahead of Harris. In June, Trump was even ahead of then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden by 18 percentage points.

Surveys in the USA should generally be treated with caution – individual surveys should not be given too much importance. However, they can certainly reflect a trend. The website FiveThirtyEight, which evaluates numerous surveys and creates an average, still sees Trump clearly ahead of Harris. Another poll, also published over the weekend, sees Trump ten percentage points ahead of Harris in Iowa.

Iowa is actually not considered a swing state in this election

The newspaper “Des Moines Register” writes about its own current survey: “The survey shows that women – especially older and politically independent women – are driving the late switch to Harris.” Neither candidate has campaigned in Iowa since the end of the primary, and neither campaign has established a local presence in the state.

National polls predict a close race between Harris and Trump in Tuesday’s (November 5) election. All eyes are particularly focused on the so-called swing states, which sometimes go to the Republicans and sometimes to the Democrats in presidential elections. They are considered decisive in the election – here too, Trump and Harris are roughly on a par in polls. Iowa is actually not one of these particularly competitive states this year. If Harris wins here, it would be a huge success for the Democrats.