Bombshell poll rocks America’s presidential race, suggesting a left-field state is perilously close

One of the most respected polls in US politics, based in a state that shouldn’t be close, has delivered a genuine shock days before the election.

Samuel Clench

@SamClench

5 min read

November 3, 2024 - 3:24PM

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One of the most respected polls in American politics has delivered a genuine shock days before the presidential election, with its final batch of data showing Kamala Harris ahead in a state that shouldn’t even be competitive.

Iowa was once considered a swing state. It voted twice for Barack Obama, in 2008 and 2012, for George W. Bush in 2004, for Al Gore in 2000 and for Bill Clinton in the 1990s.

But it has shifted decisively into the Republican column in the years since Donald Trump became the party’s figurehead. Trump won it easily in his two previous elections, beating Hillary Clinton by a margin of almost 10 per cent and Joe Biden by 8 per cent.

So Iowa has not been discussed, during this electoral cycle, as anything other than a gimme state for the Republican nominee. Earlier today we published a breakdown of all the critical swing states, identifying 13 that could go either way (and even that number is a stretch).

Iowa was not on the list.

Realistically, there are probably more like seven or eight genuine swing states. Iowa, in the American Midwest, is not considered one of them. Picture: 270toWin

The state may have lost its competitive edge in recent years, but here’s what it does still have: a local pollster with a near-universally accepted reputation for accuracy, in an industry for which that has become a very, very rare commodity.

The pollster we’re talking about here, Selzer, has been pretty much spot on in its reading of Iowa voters for most of recent history. Across the past dozen years it has got the result wrong once, in 2018, when it indicated that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Fred Hubbell would narrowly beat Republican Kim Reynolds (the fact that Ms Reynolds is the current incumbent governor tells you all you need to know about that prediction).

On the flip side, Selzer managed to pick up on Trump’s strength in Iowa both times, bucking broader trends that showed Ms Clinton and Mr Biden winning. In 2016 its last poll, suggesting Trump was comfortably ahead, landed like a bomb and was dismissed as an outlier by many, only to be vindicated days later.

So look, take any poll with a bucket – nay an entire skip bin – full of salt. No pollster, whatever its methodology or however gilt its reputation, is immune from throwing up weird numbers that don’t genuinely reflect the mood of the electorate. It happens.

Trump won Iowa easily in 2016 and 2020. Picture: Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP

Ms Harris, though, appears to be closer to him in the state than either Ms Clinton or Mr Biden were. Picture: Charly Triballeau/AFP

That’s all a preface to the data Selzer released today, in its final survey before the election. Having shown Trump leading Ms Harris by a relatively comfortable 4 percentage points in September, and him positively spanking Joe Biden by 18 per cent before the President dropped out of the race, its latest figures have Ms Harris in front by 3 per cent.

Ms Harris drew support from 47 per cent of respondents, compared to 44 per cent for Trump and a potentially important little 3 per cent morsel for independent candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr, who withdrew from the race and endorsed Trump back in August, but whose name remains on the ballot.

The lead for Ms Harris is striking in itself, but also in its implications more broadly. Say it’s wrong by a chunky 5 per cent margin, and she loses Iowa to Trump by 2 per cent. That is still a hefty swing towards the Democrats since last time.

“It is hard for anybody to say they saw this coming,” J Ann Selzer, head of the polling company that bears her name, told Iowa’s largest newspaper, The Des Moines Register.

“She has clearly leaped into a leading position.”

The word “clearly” might be doing a little too much work there. In any case, the surge towards Ms Harris appears to be driven, mostly, by female voters, as well as seniors.

“Age and gender are the two most dynamic factors that are explaining these numbers,” Ms Selzer said.

Ms Harris is ahead, with women, by a stupendously large margin, while Trump leads overwhelmingly with men – a situation which is reflected in the nation more broadly. Hence the oodles of discussion in recent months about America’s growing “gender gap”.

According to Selzer’s data, independent voters – those who are not registered with either of the parties – had consistently supported Trump throughout the election year, but have now switched to Ms Harris.

Again, it comes down to women: her margin among female independents, in this poll, stands at 28 per cent.

In the other key demographic Ms Selzer mentioned, those aged 65 or over, the gender gap is equally evident. Ms Harris leads with men, in this group, by a mere 2 per cent, but by 35 per cent among women.

Kamala Harris has a huge edge among women; Trump has the same among men. Picture: Brendan Smialowski/AFP

Pollsters face extra challenges in the United States. One in particular: voting is voluntary. Since turnout data started to be collected in the 1930s, there has not been a single election in which two-thirds of the voting-aged population bothered to cast a ballot.

So a company like Selzer is not just measuring raw support for the candidates, but trying to figure out how many supporters of each side will actually vote. A relatively small shift in the breakdown of women versus men, for example, could have a huge effect in the key states.

And historically, women vote in greater numbers. Which makes the data above quite encouraging for the Harris campaign. But Trump’s appeal to male voters may drive them to show up this time – we just don’t know, and we won’t know until the results roll in.

Why this potentially decisive shift to Ms Harris among Iowan women, then? One explanation, and by far the most obvious, is abortion policy.

Iowa has one of the country’s stricter abortion bans, which went into effect in July after a series of unsuccessful court challenges.

It was made possible by the US Supreme Court’s decision, in 2022, to overturn its landmark 1973 ruling in Roe vs Wade, which had underpinned abortion rights for decades and prevented state governments from outright banning the procedure until the point of foetal viability, at about 24 weeks of pregnancy.

Iowa’s ban, passed by the Republican-controlled state legislature and then signed by Ms Reynolds, bans abortion from the point at which cardiac activity can be detected. That’s at about six weeks of pregnancy – before many women even know they’re pregnant.

It includes exceptions, albeit limited ones, for cases of rape, incest or a life-threatening situation for the mother.

“There is no right more sacred than life,” Ms Reynolds said in June, after the state’s Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the ban.

“I’m glad that the Iowa Supreme Court has upheld the will of the people.”

Said people have the chance to express their will again this week.

“I like her policies on reproductive health and having women choosing their own healthcare,” said one respondent to Selzer, 79-year-old Linda Marshall.