Kamala Harris could flip the state as Donald Trump won twice, a new poll suggests

A new poll shows a shocking turnaround in the state of Iowa: Democratic nominee for Vice President Kamala Harris is taking the lead among likely voters just days before the 2024 presidential election.

The Des Moines Register released the results of its latest poll on Saturday and found Harris leading by three points: 47 percent of likely voters said they would vote for her if the election were held today, while 44 percent said they would go for the Republican Candidate Donald Trump decide.

This is still within the poll's margin of error, which is plus or minus 3.4 percent.

Trump held a four-point lead in the paper's previous poll in September and a stunning 18-point lead in a June poll when Trump faced off against incumbent President Joe Biden.

The former president won the state in the last two elections, expanding his lead from 51.15 percent in 2016 to 53.09 percent in 2020. The state voted twice for Barack Obama and for George W. Bush, who was entering his second term after supporting Al Gore in the 2000 election.

However, J. Ann Selzer, president of Pollster Selzer & Company, the firm that conducted the survey, said in a press release along with the results that she believes it's “hard for anyone to say they saw this coming.” “

Newsweek emailed the Trump and Harris campaigns Saturday evening seeking comment.

The poll included independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who dropped out of the race in September and supported Trump. Kennedy tried to have his name removed from the ballot, but he was unsuccessful in getting his name removed from the ballot in Iowa.

He kept his name on the ballot in states that were not contested, such as New York, and encouraged voters in those states to support him.

Kennedy received three percent of responses in the Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll, making the difference between Harris and Trump.

The extra points went to other candidates, with less than 1 percent supporting Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver and 1 percent saying they would generally just vote for someone else.

The pollsters found that independent voters overall had begun voting for Harris, particularly independent female voters, continuing a trend of a widening gender gap among likely voters.

The poll found that 56 percent of female voters support Harris, while only 36 percent support Trump. Male voters showed a similar but reverse pattern, favoring Trump at 52 percent versus Harris at 38 percent.

The Selzer & Co. poll included 808 likely voters in Iowa, both those who had already voted and those who said they would definitely vote. The margin of error is plus/minus 3.4 percentage points.