Trump leads among both men and women in the Hawkeye State

A new Emerson College Polling/RealClearDefense survey of Iowa likely voters finds 53% support former President Donald Trump and 43% support Vice President Kamala Harris for president in 2024. Three percent are undecided and 1% plan to vote for a third party. With undecided voters’ support accounted for, Trump’s overall support increases to 54% and Harris to 45%. 

“Both female and male voters in Iowa support Trump, women by a five-point margin, 51% to 46%, and men by a significant 17-point margin, 56% to 39%,” Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said. “Trump also leads among independents, 53% to 36%.” 

Harris’ strength in Iowa is with voters under 30, who break for her over Trump 54% to 46%, while Trump leads among all other age groups over 30 with varied support between 6 percentage points and 23 points. Harris also leads with voters with postgraduate degrees 52% to 45%.

Voters who said they already voted break for Trump 56% to 44% while voters who are still very likely to vote break for Trump 53% to 42%. 

The last Emerson Iowa general election poll in October of 2023 found Trump with the same lead of 10 points over President Joe Biden, 44% to 34%.

President Biden holds a 34% job approval among Iowa likely voters, and a 56% disapproval rating. 

Methodology

The Emerson College Polling Iowa survey was conducted November 1-2, 2024. The sample of likely voters, n=800, has a credibility interval, similar to a poll’s margin of error (MOE), of +/- 3.4 percentage points. The data sets were weighted by gender, education, race, age, party registration, and region based on 2024 likely voter modeling. Turnout modeling is based on U.S. Census parameters, exit polling, and voter registration data. 

It is important to remember that subsets based on demographics, such as gender, age, education, and race/ethnicity, carry higher credibility intervals, as the sample size is reduced. Survey results should be understood within the poll’s range of scores, and with a confidence interval of 95% a poll will fall outside the range of scores 1 in 20 times. 

Data was collected by contacting landlines via Interactive Voice Response (phone list provided by Aristotle) and an online panel of voters provided by CINT.

All questions asked in this survey with the exact wording, along with full results, demographics, and cross tabulations can be found under Full Results. This survey was funded by RealClearDefense.