Towards the last lap of the US election campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris made an unexpected lead over Republican candidate and former US president Donald Trump in Iowa.
The Selzer poll carried out for the Des Moines Register newspaper showed Harris ahead of Trump by three points. It is to be noted that Iowa was expected to be a safe state for the Republicans.
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Notably, Iowa is not even a swing state. If Harris were even competitive in Iowa – which Trump won in both 2016 and 2020 – it could radically reshape the race.
The Selzer poll has Harris over Trump 47% to 44% among likely voters.
In September, the polls showed Trump with a four-point lead over Harris, while in June, the survey showed an 18-point lead over then-candidate Joe Biden.
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“It’s hard for anybody to say they saw this coming,” pollster J. Ann Selzer, president of Selzer & Co, told the Register.
The polls also showed a trend of women driving the late shift giving an edge to Harris. If able to maintain the lead, it would be a significant gain for the Harris campaign as the key focus was on women and abortion rights among others.
“This is a stunning poll. But Ann Seltzer [sic] has as stellar a record as any pollster of forecasting election outcomes in her state. Women are powering this surge. Portents for the country?” said David Axelrod, a former top aide to Barack Obama.
Reportedly, Selzer is the highest-rated pollster on the national US survey done by Nate Silver, one who closely follows the polling experts in the US.