Undecided voters are making up their minds in Iowa’s tight U.S. Senate race between Democrat Josh Turek and Republican Ashley Hinson, but the race remains neck-and-neck even as more Iowans decide which candidate they’ll choose. Iowa is among this year's most competitive Senate races, as Turek and Hinson vie for the open seat left by retiring Republican Senator Joni Ernst.
Polls continue to show a tight race between the two after their first debate on October 7 where tariffs, immigration and voting records played a major role. A second debate was held last week, where the candidates sparred again over the Iran war, tariffs and immigration. Earlier in the race, the percentage of undecided voters was high, at times in double digits.
Independent voters who are not registered with a specific political party make up an impactful part of the state’s electorate, and they are among the most likely voters to choose a split-ticket at the ballot box come Election Day. Even as the number of undecided voters drops, the narrow gap between Turek and Hinson remains steady, with both candidates seen in the lead, depending on the poll. Newsweek reached out to both campaigns by email for comment on Monday.
The most recent poll to publish was conducted by conservative pollster the Trafalgar Group, which was held between October 13 and 15 and queried 1,094 likely voters. Of those, nearly 46 percent said they planned to vote for Hinson, compared to 44 percent who said Turek. More than 6 percent remained undecided.
However, the percentage of those undecided has dropped since Trafalgar’s last Iowa Senate poll from September 16 to 18 of 1,089 likely voters. While Hinson also carried a two-point lead over Turek at 44 percent to 42 percent at that time, more than 10 percent of voters were still undecided. Marist polls from September and October showed a similar pattern.
A September poll by Marist that surveyed 1,050 registered Iowa voters between September 17 and 20 found 5 percent were undecided, while a poll of 1,100 registered voters in October found 4 percent of polltakers were still undecided. In the September poll, Turek had a lead over Hinson of 50 percent to 42 percent, which narrowed considerably by the October poll, in which Turek had a three-point lead of 48 percent to Hinson’s 45 percent. A YouGov poll shows one of the most significant changes in undecided voters.
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