Could the red state of Iowa shift back to purple as a presidential swing state?
The new Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll released Saturday evening shows Vice President Kamala Harris leading former President Donald Trump by 3 percentage points in the state, 47% to 44% — a result that suggests Iowa is playing a role as election day quickly approaches.
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Yet neither campaign has viewed Iowa and its six Electoral College delegates as up for grabs.
Harris and Trump have made repeated visits to this cycle’s seven swing states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — where campaigns and political pundits have for months believed both candidates have a chance to win every state .
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Neither Harris nor Trump have campaigned in Iowa since the presidential primaries, and neither campaign has built a ground presence in the state, according to Brianne Pfannenstiel, chief politics reporter for the Des Moines Register.
Why aren’t the campaigns focused on Iowa?
It was widely expected that Trump would win. He won the state against U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton in 2016 by 9 percentage points and defeated national winner Joe Biden in Iowa by 8 points in 2020.
His campaign also spent 2023 building a massive structure in the state that delivered a 30 percentage point victory in the Iowa Caucuses in January, the largest margin in the 48-year history of Republican presidential caucuses.
How close are the fights in the battleground states compared to Iowa?
Of the seven battleground states, the widest spread in Real Clear Politics’ rolling polling average is Trump’s 2.7 percentage point lead in Arizona. The tightest spread is Harris’ lead of just one-tenth of 1 percent in Wisconsin.
Harris’ lead of 3 percentage points in the new Iowa Poll is within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points. The poll of 808 likely voters in Iowa was conducted by Selzer & Co. from October 28 to 31.
What does Iowa bring to the game now?
The poll shows that women, especially those 65 and older and those who consider themselves independent, are leading the shift toward Harris. Senior women support Harris over Trump by 63% to 28%, and women who are politically independent favor Harris by 57% to 29%.
Trump maintains wide margins with groups that form the core of his base: men, rural Iowans and those who describe themselves as evangelical.
Was Iowa a swing state before Trump won again?
Yes. It cemented that reputation during the 2000 and 2004 races, in which the margins and reversals between the two sides were razor-thin.
Democratic Vice President Al Gore won Iowa in 2000 against the eventual national winner, Republican George W. Bush, by about 4,000 votes, or 0.3%. Four years later, Bush got his revenge, defeating his Democratic rival, U.S. Senator John Kerry, by 10,000 votes, or 0.7%.
But the state returned again in 2008, when Democrat Barack Obama took Iowa by storm. The freshman U.S. senator from neighboring Illinois had built a solid base contest en route to winning the Iowa Caucuses over former U.S. Sen. John Edwards and early favorite Clinton. Obama cruised to a 10 percentage point victory over Republican U.S. Senator John McCain.
Then, in 2012, Obama won Iowa again, beating Republican Mitch Romney by 6 percentage points. But that was followed by Trump’s victory, which put Iowa back in the Republican column.
Is Iowa’s red status now purple again?
Even if Harris pulls off a surprise victory on Tuesday and Democrats do well in the vote, it would be hard to argue that Iowa is anything but Republican red.
Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds won her second full term in 2022 by 19 percentage points. Republicans hold large majorities in the Iowa Senate and House.
A good night from Democrats on Tuesday could narrow the margins, but it is not expected to change control. And Iowa heads into Election Day with an all-Republican congressional delegation: both U.S. senators, neither of whom will seek re-election this year, and all four members of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Analysts at Cook Political Report have rated the first and third districts as “toss-ups,” but expect Republicans to be re-elected in the second and fourth districts.
This article originally appeared on the Des Moines Register: Iowa as a swing state? Iowa Poll shows Harris and Trump in a tight race
