Kamala Harris takes unexpected lead over Donald Trump in Iowa

Research by Ann Selzer for the Des Moines Register puts the Democrat on 47 per cent of the vote in the state

Kamala Harris has taken a surprise three-point lead over Donald Trump in Iowa, according to a survey taken by a respected pollster.
The research, by Ann Selzer for the Des Moines Register, puts Ms Harris on 47 per cent of the vote in the state and Trump on 44 per cent.
The result suggests that Iowa, which is considered a safe Republican state, is closer than analysts had previously expected.
If the predicted swing towards Ms Harris in Iowa is accurate and is replicated nationally on Tuesday, she would win the presidential election by a landslide.
The poll of 808 likely voters, who were surveyed between October 28 and 31, found a significant shift among older voters, especially among women over 65, who favoured Ms Harris by 63 per cent to 28 per cent.
Independent likely voters also favour Ms Harris by 46 per cent to 39 per cent, the poll found, along with women, who favoured her by 20 points.
The shock result, from one of the most respected pollsters in America, is an outlier and contradicts other surveys that have found Trump leading Ms Harris in recent weeks.
“It’s hard for anybody to say they saw this coming,” Ms Selzer told the Register. “She has clearly leaped into a leading position.”
Another poll released by Emerson College taken on November 1 and 2 found Trump ahead by nine points, on 54 per cent of the vote to Ms Harris’s 45 per cent.
However, Ms Selzer’s poll is significant because Iowa has been a safe Republican state since 2016.
It is not considered one of the seven swing states in this race, and Trump won Iowa in his past two presidential campaigns by more than 9 percentage points in 2016 and 8 points in 2020.
Ms Selzer is considered a doyenne of polling in Iowa, and correctly predicted Barack Obama’s strong performance there during the Democratic primaries in 2008. Her research has generally been accurate in previous races.In response to the survey, Trump’s campaign issued a memo from its chief pollster, Tony Fabrizio, which described it as an “outlier”.
The memo contrasted Ms Selzer’s findings with the Emerson College poll, arguing that the second survey was more similar to exit polls in 2020.Pundits suggested that if Ms Selzer’s poll was correct, it could be explained by a boost in support for Ms Harris among women, because of a six-week abortion ban which took effect in Iowa in July.Ms Harris has made her opposition to abortion bans a major feature of her campaign, and has promised to reinstate federal protections for abortion access if she is elected on Tuesday.Whichever candidate wins Iowa will collect six Electoral College votes. A total of 270 are needed to win the election, of 538 available from all states.Both candidates have paid little attention to Iowa during the campaign, preferring to hold rallies in the battleground states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada.Nationally, Ms Harris is ahead of Trump by one point, according to an average of polls collated by FiveThirtyEight.