President Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden are deadlocked in Iowa, according to a new Des Moines Register-Mediacom poll released on Tuesday.
The poll shows both Trump and Biden garnering 47 percent support in the Hawkeye State, with another 4 percent planning to vote for a different candidate and 3 percent undecided.
The poll is the latest to suggest a tightening race in Iowa, a state that Trump carried four years ago by 9 points. Driving Biden’s gains in the state is his support among women and independent voters, who back the former vice president over Trump 57-37 percent and 50-38 percent, respectively.
That’s an improvement for Democrats since 2016, when Hillary Clinton won female voters in the state by a 7-point margin, capturing 51 percent of the vote to Trump’s 44 percent.
But Biden’s level of support among independent voters is an even more remarkable change from 2016. Trump won those voters in Iowa four years ago 51-38 percent.
Trump leads among men in the state, but by a smaller margin than he won in 2016. Fifty-seven percent said they back Trump, while 36 percent support Biden. Trump won those voters four years ago 61-33 percent, according to exit polls.
Trump’s 9-point win in Iowa four years ago was a crushing blow for Democrats after former President Obama carried the state in 2008 and 2012. Other Republican gains in 2016 helped fuel concerns among Democrats that the state had drifted away from its status as a political battleground.
But Democrats made gains there in the 2018 midterm elections when the party flipped two GOP-held House seats and came within 3 points of unseating Rep. Steve King (R). Democrats now represent three of the state’s four House districts.
Democrats are also eyeing other races in Iowa this year, most notably a Senate contest, in which Sen. Joni Ernst (R) is fending off a tough challenge from Democrat Theresa Greenfield. A recent Des Moines Register-Mediacom poll of that race showed Greenfield with a 3-point advantage over Ernst.
The Des Moines Register-Mediacom poll surveyed 658 likely Iowa voters from Sept. 14 to 17. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.