Iowa Poll: Donald Trump and Joe Biden are locked in a dead heat six weeks to Election Day
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DES MOINES – It's a dead heat in Iowa as a new Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll shows President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden locked in a tie just six weeks to Election Day.
Forty-seven percent of likely voters say they would support Trump for president, and 47% say they would support Biden. Another 4% would vote for someone else and 3% are unsure.
A stark gender divide appears to be driving the race as men of nearly every demographic cast their support for Trump, a Republican, and women do the same for Biden, a Democrat.
“I don’t know that there’s any race in the history of presidential polling in Iowa that shows this kind of division,” said J. Ann Selzer, president of Selzer & Co., the firm that conducted the poll.
Trump leads by 21 percentage points with men, 57% to 36% over Biden. And Biden leads by 20 percentage points with women, 57% to 37% over Trump.
Data from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office show similar voter turnout rates for men and women over recent elections, though more women typically cast ballots.
The race — despite ongoing uncertainty around the coronavirus pandemic, continued protests over racial justice and raging wildfires in the west — is largely holding steady from June, when Trump led Biden 44% to 43%.
“We've had two polls in a row putting it very, very close,” Selzer said. “I think all eyes will be on Iowa.”
Iowa has emerged as an unlikely battleground state this year after Trump carried it by 9 percentage points in 2016 and Republicans made other substantial gains. Now, the deadlocked race for president is one of many tight contests in the state, including for the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives.
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Though Election Day is Nov. 3, early voting begins in Iowa Oct. 5 in person and via mail.
Iowa’s likely voters are starting to become more firm in their choices for president, with 84% saying their minds are made — up from 75% in June.
The poll was conducted Sept. 14 through 17 and includes responses from 803 Iowa adults, including 658 likely voters. Questions asked of Iowa adults have a margin of error of plus or minus 3. 5 percentage points. Those asked of likely voters have a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.
Women, independents driving Biden’s support
CNN exit polling of Iowa voters in the 2016 election showed Trump carried men by 28 percentage points, 61% to 33%. Democrat Hillary Clinton carried women, but by a smaller margin than Biden is now — just 7 percentage points, or 51% to 44%.
That migration of women over to Biden is a major factor driving the current race dynamics, Selzer said.
“If Biden wins, it’s because women are steering the ship,” she said.
Biden leads with married women, 52% to 45%; unmarried women, 64% to 25%; mothers with children under 18 in the household, 55% to 39%; white women without a college degree, 56% to 37%; and white women with a college degree, 54% to 43%.
“For the first time in my life, I'm just voting a straight Democratic ticket,” said Marge Courtney, a 64-year-old poll respondent from Eldon. Courtney identifies as an independent and said she typically votes with Democrats but has supported some Republicans, including Iowa’s U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley.
This year, she said she supports Biden because of his experience. And she will oppose Republicans more broadly because she feels they’re running on an agenda of “exclusion.”
“It’s the exclusion of people who are different — whether they're different colors, different nationalities, different sexualities, anything,” she said. “I want an inclusive political party.”
Trump similarly leads with men across most demographic groups. He leads with men with children under the age of 18, 61% to 30%; married men, 59% to 35%; unmarried men, 52% to 38%; white men without a college degree, 64% to 31%; and white men with a college degree, 48% to 45%.
The only group of men Trump doesn’t carry is independent voters, which Biden holds by just 1 percentage point — 45% to 44%.
With independent voters overall, Biden has a 12-point lead over Trump, 50% to 38%.
That’s almost the exact inverse of how Iowa’s independent voters behaved in 2016, according to CNN exit polling. That year independent voters favored Trump 51% to 38% over Clinton.
Biden’s lead among independent likely voters is fueled by the broader support he enjoys among women. While Biden leads Trump by just 1 percentage point among independent men, 45% to 44%, he leads by 24 percentage points among independent women, 55% to 31%.
Economy helping fuel Trump’s support
Monty Andreasen, a 54-year-old poll respondent from Peterson, said he plans to vote for Trump “no matter what,” in large part because of the economy.
Despite a pandemic that has forced much of the economy to a halt and record-breaking unemployment rates, poll respondents like Andreasen, a Republican, remain optimistic.
He’s among the 41% of Iowans who say they are better off financially today than they were four years ago. Another 15% say they are worse off, 43% say they're about the same and 1% are unsure.
Those numbers are substantially higher than in September 2012, when the Register last polled on this question, and 28% of respondents said they were better off financially than they were four years earlier. In 2012, 30% said they were worse off, and 42% said they were about the same.
Andreasen said he's better off today "by a long shot.“
"Trump gets (things) done,” he said. “Look what he's done. Look at your income from your investments, the jobs and everything else.”
Two-thirds of Republicans say they're better off today than they were four years ago; 54% of Democrats say they're in about the same financial shape as before.
Among independents, 36% say they’re better off, 46% say they’re about the same, and 17% say they’re worse off.
Although the United States saw historic job losses in the spring, Trump in his campaign speeches has focused on the big gains made in the summer.
Most Iowans disapprove of Trump's handling of COVID-19
Trump has promised the speedy development of a coronavirus vaccine and has pushed schools to reopen for in-person teaching. But he recently faced renewed criticism of his handling of the pandemic after journalist Bob Woodward published comments Trump told him in February that he knew how deadly the virus was while downplaying it publicly.
More than 80,000 Iowans have tested positive for the coronavirus, and nearly 1,300 have died.
Today, a majority of Iowans disapprove of the job Trump is doing to address the pandemic. Fifty-three percent disapprove of the job he’s doing — a number that is unchanged since June. And 43% approve — down slightly from 45% in June.
Overall, the percentage of those who say they view Trump favorably ticked up from 45% in June to 48% today. And the percentage of those who view him unfavorably dropped slightly from 52% in June to 49% today.
The percentage of those who view Biden favorably dropped from 45% in June to 43% today. The percentage of those who view him unfavorably is at 51% today compared to 50% in June.
About this poll
The Iowa Poll, conducted September 14-17 for the Des Moines Register and Mediacom by Selzer & Co. of Des Moines, is based on telephone interviews with 803 Iowans ages 18 or older. Interviewers with Quantel Research contacted households with randomly selected landline and cellphone numbers supplied by Dynata. Interviews were administered in English. Responses were adjusted by age, sex and congressional district to reflect the general population based on recent American Community Survey estimates.
Questions based on the sample of 803 Iowa adults have a maximum margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points, and questions based on the sample of 658 likely voters in the 2020 general election have a maximum margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points. This means that if this survey were repeated using the same questions and the same methodology, 19 times out of 20, the findings would not vary from the true population value by more than plus or minus 3.5 or 3.8 percentage points, respectively. Results based on smaller samples of respondents — such as by gender or age — have a larger margin of error.
Republishing the copyright Iowa Poll without credit to the Des Moines Register and Mediacom is prohibited.
Brianne Pfannenstiel is the chief politics reporter for the Register. Reach her at bpfann@dmreg.com or 515-284-8244. Follow her on Twitter at @brianneDMR.
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This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Donald Trump, Joe Biden are tied in Iowa in 2020 presidential race
