All bets are off: Harris looking at +300 as Trump’s support collapses in Iowa

Iowa Poll Shows Harris leading Trump by 3 points

The Des Moines Register’s final Iowa Poll of the election cycle shows Kamala Harris leading Donald Trump by 3 points in a state he previously carried twice. I should mention the Des Moines Register—they were the ones who first flashed a warning signal for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Until then, Iowa had been considered a swing state.

Hillary Clinton likely entered the race thinking Iowa was in her column. But on October 8th, 2016 a massive warning sign sounded: Trump was leading her in the state by 4 points. She did invest in Iowa, and right up until the last moment, her team worked to keep it blue. Then, on November 4th, the Des Moines Register poll showed Trump leading Clinton by a substantial 7 points. I think a lot of people were grasping at straws when that poll dropped.

In the end, Trump won the state by nine points. The Des Moines Register knows their ground—they’re good. When people kept asking me about Florida coming into play, I told them to wait for the Iowa poll from the Des Moines Register.

Now, what does an Iowa poll have to do with Florida? We’ll get to that in a moment, but first, let’s look at what’s been happening in Iowa.

The Des Moines Register has released three polls since June of this year. The first, in June 2024, had Trump leading Biden by a massive 18 points. Then Harris took over the Democratic nomination and shook up the race. The next poll, released in September, showed Trump leading Harris by just 4 points. People I spoke to said it was just the "new candidate bounce" and would fade.

Well, it didn’t—it accelerated.

Minutes ago, the latest poll from the Des Moines Register dropped (yes, I was refreshing constantly). It now shows Kamala Harris leading Trump by 3 points. 47% to 44%.

“It’s hard for anybody to say they saw this coming,” said pollster J. Ann Selzer, president of Selzer & Co. “She has clearly leaped into a leading position.” 

Donald Trump’s ongoing challenges with seniors, women, and independents in the Midwest and Pennsylvania are now beginning to spread nationwide. I just wrote about this late shift among independents in the Midwest yesterday and how it pushed Kamala Harris over the critical 50% line. This same group of voters has also swung in favor of Kamala Harris in Iowa.

Independent voters, who had consistently supported Trump in the leadup to this election, now break for Harris. That’s driven by the strength of independent women, who back Harris by a 28-point margin, while independent men support Trump, but by a smaller margin. 

Similarly, senior voters who are 65 and older favor Harris. But senior women support her by a more than 2-to-1 margin, 63% to 28%, while senior men favor her by just 2 percentage points, 47% to 45%.  

Can she really win Iowa?

Well, she’s closer to 50% than Trump. But at 47%, this race is still not a done deal. However, the trend—from Trump leading by 18 points to now trailing by 3—is devastating news for him. Neither Trump nor Kamala Harris has invested much in the state, so the candidate with the momentum should be favored to win. Still, it’s simply breathtaking, and it’s hard to confidently place Iowa in the safe column for Harris just yet.

Not that Team Harris will complain. The key point here is that late-breaking independents are moving en masse to Kamala Harris. Seniors are shifting as well, and with Latino support for the GOP crumbling like a sandcastle in the tide, we can’t rule out Florida slipping from GOP hands. This applies to both the Senate race and the presidential race.

A recent poll of Puerto Rican voters in Florida shows overwhelming support for Harris over Trump, at 85% to 8%. While Puerto Ricans typically lean Democratic, support has surged by 17 points following the recent MSG rally. That is an easy 100k votes in Florida that has moved in favor of the Democrats.

Since it’s so late in the race, it would be challenging for Harris to shift her strategy to fully target these new states coming into play. Team Harris will likely let the momentum ride, while keeping their focus on the Midwest and Pennsylvania. We could be looking at a seven-state sweep for Harris.

All bets are off now.

There’s no way to predict how big her win could be—it could be anything from 270 electoral votes to well over 300. Winning decisively is the only way to put an end to the Trump-Musk-Thiel strategy to capture the White House. Maybe seniors and independents have indeed heard our calls.