6 thoughts on the Iowa SHOCK poll 😲
Harris +3!
I was getting ready to go see a band — Oliver Hazard, which you should absolutely check out! — on Saturday night when the Des Moines Register poll dropped.
The result — Kamala Harris 47%, Donald Trump 44% — was a MAJOR shocker. I spent the next few hours thinking about it (and listening to great music).
My thoughts on the poll are below. They are in no particular order other than how they came to me.
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This would be a MAJOR change from recent presidential elections in Iowa. In 2020, Trump beat Joe Biden by 8 points in the Hawkeye State. In 2016, Trump beat Hillary Clinton by 9.5 points. Of course, Barack Obama won Iowa in 2012 and 2008. The state hasn’t sent a Democrat to the Senate since 2008. All four of its House members are Republicans. Its governor and all but one statewide elected official are Republicans. So….
J. Ann Selzer may be the best pollster in the country. Ann has been conducting the Register poll for years now. And she has been scary accurate. I mean, SCARY accurate:
The DMR poll hasn’t been pro Harris (or pro Democrat) all year. Back in June, the poll showed Trump ahead by 18 points over then Democratic nominee Joe Biden. And in September, Trump was up 4 points on Harris. Given the narrowness of the Trump lead in September, the Harris +3 result in this latest poll also makes some sense if you believe she has been gaining momentum in recent months.
The gender gap is everything. In a recent conversation with NBC’s Chuck Todd, we said that if you wanted a hint as to how the election was going to end up, you just needed to look at the gender gaps for each candidate. If Trump beats Harris by more among men than she beats him among women, he is very likely to win. And, as the Register poll shows, the opposite is true too. Harris is +20 among women in Iowa while Trump is +14 among men.
The former Trumpers. Trump likes to say that he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not lose any supporters. That’s not true, at least in Iowa. Roughly 1 in 6 people who are not going to vote for Trump said they had, in the past, backed the former president.
Old voters for Harris. In 2020, Trump won Iowa voters aged 65+ by a 54%-45% margin. In the new Register poll, Harris wins among those older voters by 19 points. Have older voters turned that strongly against Trump? (And why?) If they have — and it’s true outside of Iowa — then Trump is in deep trouble.
For much more on the poll, you should check out
’s interview with Ann Selzer today.
Four years later, more Boomers are in the senior demographic, and we're NOT MAGAts.
Bill Kristol just posted a piece at The Bulwark titled "It's Abortion, Stupid." If you want a reason why women in Iowa are turning against Trump, it's because the state enacted one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country.