Iowa Senate and Governor Polls Show Dead Heat as Florida Numbers Favor Republicans

Iowa hasn't elected a Democratic governor since Chet Culver in 2006, and the state's last Democratic senator, Tom Harkin, left office in 2015. That history is now genuinely in question, depending on which poll you trust.

A Suffolk University poll conducted Oct. 1-4 among 500 registered voters found Democratic state Rep. Josh Turek leading Rep. Ashley Hinson 48% to 44% in the Senate race, with a margin of error of 4.4 points. The same poll had Democrat Rob Sand up 55% to 43% over Republican Zach Lahn in the governor's race, according to Political Wire.

A Fox News poll of Iowa likely voters found a tighter version of the same story: Turek 49%, Hinson 47%, well within the margin of error. Among registered voters the gap widened to Turek 50%, Hinson 46%, a spread Fox News said has been unchanged since June.

A Marist poll taken Sept. 17-20 of 1,050 registered voters showed Turek's biggest lead of the cycle, 50% to 42%, with Sand up 54% to 42% on Lahn, according to Newsweek. But that same Newsweek roundup noted a Trafalgar Group poll of 1,089 likely voters taken Sept. 16-18 had Hinson ahead 44% to 42.1%, and a separate right-leaning pollster surveying 831 likely voters Sept. 14-16 had Hinson up 46%.

Breitbart's coverage adds two more data points neither Newsweek nor Political Wire mention in detail: a Quantus Insights poll and an Emerson College Polling/Nexstar Media survey, both of which Breitbart reported show Hinson ahead of Turek. Breitbart did not publish the topline numbers for either poll in the material reviewed here.

That's six polls in roughly a month, three showing a Democrat ahead by mid-single digits to double digits, three showing a Republican ahead by low single digits. The Cook Political Report rates the Senate race a pure toss-up and the governor's race as leaning Democratic, which tracks with the governor numbers being more consistent across pollsters than the Senate numbers.

Lahn's campaign isn't buying any of it. A spokesperson told Newsweek: "The polls are incorrect, just like they were in the primary. We will win in November and retire liberal billionaire Rob Sand." Iowa pollsters have missed badly before, and likely-voter screens are educated guesses, not measurements. Iowa's sample sizes here range from 500 to 1,089 people trying to represent an electorate of registered voters statewide.

Trump's approval numbers in Iowa are a real headwind for Hinson and Lahn regardless of which poll you believe. Fox News found 57% of Iowans disapprove of Trump's job performance against 42% approval. Marist found almost identical numbers: 58% disapprove, 41% approve. Trump carried Iowa with nearly 56% of the vote in 2024, so a majority of his own voters souring on him, or new voters entering the electorate, shapes these races.

Fox News also found cost of living is the dominant issue, with 6 in 10 Iowa voters calling it "extremely important" to their Senate vote, outpacing Trump himself, immigration, and AI. Voters who say their families are falling behind financially, now 4 in 10 compared to 3 in 10 in the 2024 Fox News Voter Analysis, back Turek by 38 points, according to Fox News.

On the ground, Trump has tried to counter the economic narrative directly. He announced plans to build what Breitbart described as the largest steel plant in U.S. history in Iowa, a $15 billion investment that Lahn has credited to Republican leadership in his own campaign messaging.

Florida shows different numbers. An NBC South Florida/Telemundo Station Group poll published by NBC News found Republican Byron Donalds leading Democrat David Jolly 48% to 41% in the governor's race, and Republican Sen. Ashley Moody up 50% to 40% over Democratic Socialists of America-aligned challenger Angie Nixon. Trump's approval is underwater there too, 49% disapprove to 45% approve, but it isn't translating into the same Democratic advantage it appears to be generating in Iowa.

NBC News flagged one notable shift inside the Florida numbers: Hispanic voters, who broke for Trump by roughly 11 points in Miami-Dade County in 2024 after backing Biden by 7 points in 2020, now show Donalds and Jolly nearly even, 48% to 43%, and Moody up only 47% to 40% over Nixon among that bloc. That's a softer Republican hold on Hispanic voters than 2024, even as the statewide numbers still favor the GOP comfortably.

More scheduled events will test all of this. Sand and Lahn held their first televised debate Tuesday night with three more scheduled before Election Day, and Hinson and Turek are set to debate Wednesday night on Iowa PBS. Whether Iowa breaks the pattern of the last decade and a half, or whether the pollsters showing Hinson and Lahn ahead turn out to be reading the electorate correctly, won't be known until the votes are actually counted.