A poll in Iowa that showed Kamala Harris unexpectedly ahead of Donald Trump in a state previously considered safe for Republicans sent shockwaves through America's election watchers.

The Selzer poll, conducted for the Des Moines Register newspaper, showed Harris three points ahead of her Republican rival.

Midwestern Iowa is not one of the seven battleground states in the 2024 election, which consist of the rust belt states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, and the sun belt states of Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada and Arizona.

While political pundits and pollsters are wary of placing too much emphasis on any one poll, Selzer is a widely respected pollster with a good track record in Iowa. If Harris were at all competitive in Iowa – which Trump won in both 2016 and 2020 – that could radically change the race.

According to the Selzer poll, Harris leads Trump among likely voters 47% to 44%. A September poll showed Trump with a four-point lead over Harris, and a June poll showed him with an 18-point lead over then-candidate Joe Biden.

“Nobody can say they see this coming,” pollster J Ann Selzer, president of Selzer & Co, told the Register. “She has clearly made the leap into a leadership position.”

The poll found that women in the state are driving the late shift toward Harris. If true and confirmed more broadly, it would also be significant given that the Harris campaign has focused on electing women amid a wide gender gap and Republican-leaning male voters. Harris and her campaign focused on overturning federal abortion laws by the conservative-dominated U.S. Supreme Court.

The reaction from pundits and pollsters was largely one of shock and surprise, although it was also noted that a rival pollster in Iowa still had Trump in the lead.

“This is a breathtaking survey. But Ann Seltzer (sic) has as great a record as any pollster at predicting election results in her state. Women are driving this recovery. “A sign for the country?” said David Axelrod, a former top adviser to Barack Obama.

“I mean, there are margins of error and polls can be outliers, and I doubt Harris will win Iowa, but Selzer is highly regarded and a race within the margin in Iowa is not impossible, especially given the reported late shifts to Harris.” real,” said Washington Post columnist Philip Bump.

Selzer is the top-rated pollster in the US national survey by pollster Nate Silver, one of the most followed pollsters in the US.

“In the world where Harris wins Iowa, she is likely to sweep up elsewhere in the Midwest, particularly Michigan and Wisconsin. In this case, she is already almost assured of victory in the Electoral College,” Silver said on his website.

However, he also pointed out that another poll was released in Iowa on Saturday in which Trump was still ahead. The Emerson poll showed the former US president with a nine-point lead over Harris.

“It is incredibly brave to publish this survey. This means that Harris is not ahead in our forecast, because there was also another poll in Iowa today that was good for Trump. But I wouldn’t want to play poker against Ann Selzer,” Silver said.

That seemed to prevent premature celebration on behalf of many Democrats.

“Celebrate the Selzer poll for 90 seconds and then get back to work. We have an election to win,” said Christopher Hale, a former Democratic congressional candidate in Tennessee.