A summary of recent polls surveying Iowa voters shows that U.S. Senate candidate Josh Turek and gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand, both Democrats, have strong chances of winning their respective elections this November. The last time Democrats won an Iowa Senate election was 18 years ago, when incumbent Senator Tom Harkin beat his Republican opponent, Christopher Reed.
In the elections since, current U.S. Senator Joni Ernst, a Republican who is not running for reelection this year, and Republican Chuck Grassley have had control of Iowa's two Senate seats. It's been even longer since a Democrat won a gubernatorial election, with the last Democrat to win the seat being Chet Culver in 2006.
Despite these trends, an average of recent polls from different organizations puts Turek at a small lead over U.S. Representative Ashley Hinson, his Republican opponent. Many of the same polls show Sand leading his Republican opponent, Zach Lahn.
We will win in November and retire liberal billionaire Rob Sand," a Lahn campaign spokesperson told Newsweek. Newsweek reached out to the campaigns for Hinson, Turek, and Sand by email for comment on Friday. The most recent poll—and the one that shows Turek's largest lead over Hinson out of the polls assessed in this report—comes from Marist.
The poll surveyed 1,050 registered Iowa voters and was conducted between September 17 and 20. Voters were contacted by phone, text, or online. For the Senate race, Turek led Hinson with 50 percent to 42 percent respectively in terms of who the polled voters supported.
However, an important caveat is that voters still believed Hinson would win over Turek once the election comes. In the same poll, Sand holds an impressive lead over Lahn at 54 percent to 42 percent. Independents, who make up a large share of Iowa's voters, are more likely to favor Sand than Lahn, the poll found.
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