The first Simpson College/RABA poll released today shows an extremely tight presidential race in Iowa between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton with Trump leading by one point 43 percent to 42 percent in their 2-way poll.
Trump maintains his lead when Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein are also polled. Trump leads with 40 percent while Clinton pulls 39 percent. Ten percent of Iowans polled indicate they’ll support Johnson while three percent support Stein. Only eight percent of Iowans polled say they are unsure who they’ll support for President.
“This poll shows that both Trump and Clinton have a loyal, dug-in base of support showing little movement, even when Iowa voters are given an alternative candidate from which to choose,” Kedron Bardwell, chair of Simpson’s political science department, said. “The campaigns of both Trump and Clinton have even more reason to ratchet up their ground games to make sure the votes are there on election day.”
Only 52 percent of Iowa voters indicated they are voting in support of their candidate. 41 percent said they were voting against a particular candidate. Also 57 percent of Iowans polled believe that third party candidates should be included in the presidential debates with only 29 percent being against.
In four-way polling Trump leads Clinton among men 44 percent to 34%. He also has a three point lead over Clinton among independent voters 35 percent to 32 percent. Johnson has the support of 19 percent of independents polled. Trump also leads by 10 percent among voters without a college education, and a 31 percent lead among evangelicals. Clinton leads among women 43 percent to 37 percent. She also leads among those who do have a college education 42 percent to 36 percent. She leads among non-evangelicals by 28 percent.
The Simpson/RABA poll was conducted September 6-8 among a random sample of 1,054 voters on landline and cellular phones, with supplemental cell phone-only households surveyed online. The margin of error is +/- 3.0 percent.
Among those polled 32 percent identified themselves as Republican, 31 percent as Democrat and 37 percent as “other.” Also 40 percent polled identified themselves as a born-again or evangelical Christian.
