In Iowa, considered a stronghold of former President Donald Trump, the Republican candidate in the U.S. presidential election, Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris is leading within the margin of error according to a recent poll.
On the 2nd (local time), according to U.S. political media The Hill and others, local media Des Moines Register surveyed 808 voters who intended to vote from the 28th to the 31st of last month. Among the respondents, 47% supported Harris, while 44% supported former President Trump.
Harris leads by 3 percentage points, which is within the margin of error of ±3.4 percentage points.
In a poll conducted last September, Trump was ahead of Harris by 4 percentage points, but as the presidential election approaches, Harris has overtaken Trump in the latest poll results.
Iowa had chosen former President Donald Trump, the Republican candidate, in the last two U.S. presidential elections. In the 2016 election, Trump defeated the Democratic candidate by 9 percentage points, and in the 2020 election by 8 percentage points.
From 1988 to 2012, Iowa supported the Democratic candidate in all but one of the seven presidential elections, raising interest in whether the voter sentiment is shifting back toward the Democratic Party. The population is about 3.2 million, with over 80% being white.
Iowa (6 electoral votes) was naturally expected to choose former President Trump and was not considered a battleground state that would decide the outcome of this election.
Excluding the seven major battleground states?Pennsylvania (19), Michigan (15), Arizona (11), Wisconsin (10), Nevada (6), North Carolina (16), and Georgia (16)?the estimated electoral vote count for Vice President Harris and former President Trump is 226 to 219, respectively.
If Vice President Harris wins Iowa as the polls suggest, she could gain an advantage in the extremely close race centered around these battleground states.
In this poll, Harris led Trump by 28 percentage points among female voters without party affiliation. Conversely, Trump led Harris by 10 percentage points among male voters without party affiliation.
The Des Moines Register explained that both Harris and Trump are focusing their efforts on the seven battleground states, but neither has campaigned in Iowa since the primary.
Ahead of this year’s presidential election, the Democratic Party changed the first primary state to South Carolina, arguing that Iowa’s public opinion does not reflect the national sentiment and thus lacks representativeness. They stated there is no reason to give significance to a place that does not support them as a presidential election barometer.
Meanwhile, the Trump campaign downplayed the poll results and presented a survey by Emerson College showing Trump leading by 10 percentage points in Iowa.
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