Former President Donald Trump lashed out Sunday at stunning poll results that show him narrowly behind in ruby-red Iowa — as he claimed without evidence that many more Democrats were surveyed than Republicans.
Trump also alleged that the poll was “fake” before attacking it and the news media as “corrupt.”
“We’ve been waiting nine years for this, and we got two days and we got all this crap going on with the press and with the fake stuff and fake polls,” Trump told supporters in Lititz, Pennsylvania. “And by the way, the polls are just as corrupt as some of the writers back there.”
The Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll results, released Saturday night, showed Harris leading Trump, 47% to 44%, among 808 likely voters surveyed Monday to Thursday.
It came the same day Emerson College said it found Trump leading Harris, 53% to 43%, among 800 likely Iowa voters surveyed Thursday and Friday.
Trump said without evidence that “when you read” the Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll, “they interviewed far more Democrats than they did Republicans.”
“Why did they do that? Why do they do that? And I guess there’s a law that they have to say that because they would have preferred not having to say that,” he said, according to a video clip posted on YouTube by Forbes Breaking News.
Neither the Register’s Saturday night report nor the five-page summary of the poll on its website indicate the party affiliation of those surveyed.
But the Register said the results were driven by women, especially those who are older or politically independent.
“Age and gender are the two most dynamic factors that are explaining these numbers,” pollster J. Ann Selzer, whose company conducted the survey, told the Register.
The Register said the results also showed that Trump won the support of 89% of self-identified Republicans, with 5% of them supporting Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
Among self-identified independents, the split was 46% to 39% in favor of Harris, who was also backed by 97% of Democrats.
The poll also showed that 16% of those who don’t support Trump this election did so in the past.
Lifelong Republican Ralph Newbanks, 63, of Solon, Iowa, told the Register he planned to vote for Harris.
“It’s not what I like about her, it’s what I dislike about Trump,” he said. “Since 2020 and the Capitol riots, I couldn’t vote for Trump if he paid me, not for love nor money.”
Iowa is a solidly GOP state, with 669,053 active voters registered as Republicans and 495,751 as Democrats, according to figures posted online Friday by Secretary of State Paul Pate.
