One of the country’s most accurate polls found an impressively slim margin between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris among likely voters in Iowa.
Trump was polling at 47 percent, while Harris was polling at 43 percent among likely Iowa voters, according to the most recent survey published Sunday by the Des Moines Register/Mediacom and conducted by Selzer & Co.
While this poll shows that Trump still maintains the lead in Iowa, its results may actually indicate bad news for the former president, according to CNN’s analyst Harry Enten.
Selzer polls have a history of being uniquely accurate when it comes to Trump, while other polls fail to capture voter preferences.
In 2020, Seltzer’s Iowa survey found that Trump was up by seven points the day before polls opened, while other estimates had Biden in a far more favorable position come Election Day. Trump won by eight points. The same thing happened in 2016: The Selzer poll saw Trump ahead of Hillary Clinton by seven points, and he ended up winning by nine. Trump’s two Iowa wins have been by much bigger margins than the one predicted now between the former president and Harris.
The new Selzer survey shows Trump leading Harris by only four points, with a margin of error of 3.9 points. Not only does this put her in a better position to win than Biden or Clinton, but it also shows a remarkable leap from where Biden was only three months ago. The previous Selzer poll from June had Trump beating Biden by a whopping 18 points.
What’s more, the current Selzer poll confirms the indication from other polls that the presidential race between Harris and Trump is far closer than previous cycles.
Enten also suggested that the close race between Harris and Trump in Iowa could signal a wider shift increasing her favorability in neighboring states such as Wisconsin, which has similar voter demographics. Marquette University Law School’s most recent poll put Harris at 52 percent to Trump’s 48 percent among likely Wisconsin voters.
