Republican Sen. Joni Ernst is trailing her Democratic challenger for Iowa’s Senate seat, putting a once-safe GOP race in doubt, according to an early poll.
Ernst, 49, has support from 43% of likely Iowa voters compared to 46% who told Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll researchers they’d cast a ballot for Democrat Theresa Greenfield. Another 7% remain undecided.
J. Ann Selzer, whose firm Selzer & Co. conducted the poll, said this was the first survey fielded since Ernst, a President Trump ally, first ran for the Senate in 2014, which showed her behind her opponent.
“Symbolically, that’s certainly meaningful, even if Theresa Greenfield’s lead is not commanding,” Selzer said.
Greenfield, 56, is a self-described “farm kid,” who this week beat three other Democrats for the party’s 2020 senatorial nomination.
Greenfield’s popularity with women is the driving force behind her slim, three percentage point advantage on Ernst, a former state senator and Iowa Army National Guard lieutenant colonel, Saturday’s poll found. Greenfield leads Ernst 54% to 34% among women, and 60% to 29% among white women without a college degree.
“More women typically vote in elections than men,” Selzer said. “And so if there is this kind of gap, this kind of lead with the majority of voters, it’s very difficult to overcome that. Except that recently the division is strong on both sides.”
While Trump won Iowa 51% to 42% over Hillary Clinton in 2016, Democrats flipped two Republican-held congressional districts two years later in 2018.
The political shift in Iowa doesn’t bode well for the GOP in the U.S. Senate. The party is desperately trying to hold on to its narrow 53- to 47-seat majority in the chamber.
Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll researchers surveyed 674 likely voters from June 7-10 via landlines and cellphones. Their results have a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 points.
