By james art 
Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during the ‘When We Vote, We Win’ campaign rally at Craig Ranch Amphitheater on October 31, 2024 in North Las Vegas, Nevada.
Ethan Miller | Getty Images
Kamala Harris leads Donald Trump in Iowa 47 percent to 44 percent among likely voters, according to a shocking new poll released Saturday night, just three days before Election Day.
Harris’ lead is within the poll’s 3.4 percentage point margin of error, but her lead reflects a 7-point swing in voters in her favor since September.
The results of the Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll came as a complete surprise to political observers, as no serious analyst predicted the Democratic nominee would beat Trump in the state.
Neither candidate has campaigned in the state, which Trump easily won in the last two presidential elections, after the presidential primaries ended.
“It’s hard for anyone to say they expected this to happen,” sociologist J. Ann Selzer, president of Selzer & Co, told the Des Moines Register.
“She’s clearly jumped into the lead.”
Selzer & Co. conducted a survey of 808 likely Iowa voters Monday through Thursday. Selzer’s company is highly regarded by pollsters, and its findings typically carry considerable weight among political strategists.
Harris’ lead in the poll was bolstered by strong support from female voters, especially older and politically independent ones.
“Age and gender are the two most dynamic factors that explain these numbers,” Seltzer told the Register.
The poll found that 3 percent of those polled supported independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who ended his campaign in support of Trump. Kennedy remains on the Iowa ballot.
The same poll in September showed Trump leading Harris, the current vice president, by 4 percentage points. Trump beat President Joe Biden, then the presumptive Democratic nominee, by 18 percentage points in June.
Trump won the state by 8 percentage points in 2020 and by 9 points in 2016.
The Republican’s campaign issued a memo Saturday night calling the poll a “distraction.”
The memo noted that a new Emerson College poll of likely Iowa voters released earlier Saturday showed Trump leading Harris 53 percent to 43 percent.
Trump’s campaign memo said: “The Des Moines Register is clearly an extraordinary survey. Emerson College published today much more accurately reflects the state of the actual Iowa electorate and does so with much more transparency in their methodology.”