Poll showing Harris running in Iowa throws wrench into election forecast: expert

A surprise poll in Iowa showing Vice President Kamala Harris with a slight lead over former President Donald Trump in the state has thrown a “wrench” into the home stretch of the campaign, according to ABC News Washington bureau chief and political director Rick Klein .

A day before Election Day, a Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa poll conducted by renowned Iowa pollster J. Ann Selzer showed Harris with a 47% to 44% lead among likely voters over Trump, who is solid in the Hawkeye State Victories achieved in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections.

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The poll released Saturday follows a Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll in September that gave Trump a four percentage point lead over Harris in Iowa and one in June that gave him an 18-point lead over President Joe Biden. Who was the presumptive Democratic nominee at the time?

“This really messed up everyone’s analysis before the election,” Klein said on “ABC News Live” Sunday night. “This is a poll in Iowa — yes, Iowa — with Kamala Harris leading by three points.”

Trump used social media to attack both the Des Moines Register poll and Selzer, who has overseen the Register's polls since 1987 and whom Klein called a “very reputable pollster.”

“No president has done more for FARMERS and the great state of Iowa than Donald J. Trump,” Trump wrote in a post on his network Truth Social on Sunday morning. “In fact, it’s not even close! All the polls except one, which was heavily biased towards the Democrats by a Trump hater who called the last one completely wrong, have kept me WAY up.”

In a Des Moines Register poll released just before the 2020 election, Selzer found Trump leading Biden 48% to 41%. Trump won Iowa 53% to 45%.

“No one can say they saw this coming,” Selzer told the Des Moines Register about the latest poll. “She (Harris) has clearly jumped into the leadership position.”

“Age and gender are the two most dynamic factors that explain these numbers,” Selzer added.

With just hours left in the race, both candidates are working to win over undecided voters and advance their final bids for the White House. Harris campaigned in the battleground state of Pennsylvania on Monday, while Trump made campaign stops in North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

According to the University of Florida Election Lab, more than 78 million people had already voted as of Monday afternoon, including a record number of in-person ballots.

“There aren't many people who believe Donald Trump will suddenly lose the state he won by eight points, but it could be an indication of the weakness he has with voters in other states, including Wisconsin and Michigan , has,” Klein said in The Des Moines Register's latest poll.

An ABC News/Ipsos poll released Saturday showed Harris with a three-point lead over Trump among likely voters nationwide, 49% to 46%.

“The polls haven't changed since Kamala Harris came into the race,” Klein said on ABC's “Good Morning America” ​​on Monday, referring to the ABC News/Ipsos poll that shows the Support for either candidate has not changed significantly since then.

Klein also cited the latest New York Times/Siena College poll showing Harris gaining ground in some of the seven battleground states. The poll showed Harris leading by three points in Nevada, by two points in North Carolina and Wisconsin, and by one point in Georgia. The poll showed Trump leading by four points in Arizona and that the race was tied in Pennsylvania and Michigan.

When it comes to the gender gap, the ABC News/Ipsos poll found that women overall went for Harris by 11 percentage points, while women registered as independents supported Harris by 18 percentage points and women under 30 went for vice president by 40 percent . Plus points.

The ABC News/Ipsos poll found Trump leading among men overall by five percentage points, while men registered as independents favored Trump by four percentage points and men under 30 sided with Trump by five percentage points.

Klein said the ABC News/Ipsos poll also found that 74% of Americans say the country is on the wrong path, including half of Harris supporters and 98% of Trump supporters.

“Wild numbers,” Klein said. “And these are the things that are typically brutal for an incumbent party, but of course this is an unusual year in many ways.”