Harris tops Trump in latest poll

US Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has surpassed Republican Donald Trump in a new poll in Iowa, with likely women voters responsible for the turnaround in a state that Trump easily won in 2016 and 2020, according to a Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll released on Saturday (2).

The poll of 808 likely voters, who were surveyed Oct. 28-31, has Harris leading Trump 47 per cent-44 per cent in Iowa, which has been trending deeply Republican in recent years.

It is within the 3.4 percentage point margin of error, but it marked a turnaround from a September Iowa Poll that had Trump with a 4-point lead, the newspaper reported.

"The poll shows that women — particularly those who are older or who are politically independent — are driving the late shift toward Harris," the Register said.

Trump won Iowa in his past two presidential campaigns by more than 9 percentage points in 2016 and 8 points in 2020.

The Trump campaign released a memo from its chief pollster and its chief data consultant calling the Des Moines Register poll "a clear outlier," and saying that an Emerson College poll - also released Saturday - more closely reflected the state of the Iowa electorate.

The Emerson College Polling/RealClearDefense survey of a similar number of likely voters Nov. 1-2 had a starkly different result, with Trump leading Harris by 10 points. This poll also has a 3.4 percentage point margin of error.

The Emerson College survey had Trump with strong leads over Harris among men and independents, while Harris was performing well with those under the age of 30.

Nationally, Harris and Trump are seen locked in a tight race for the White House, with early voting well underway. Election Day is on Tuesday (5).

Whoever wins Iowa will collect six Electoral College votes. A total of 270 are needed to capture the White House.

Meanwhile, Harris campaigns in Michigan on Sunday (3) while Trump will stop in three eastern battleground states.

Harris is due to campaign in East Lansing, Michigan, a college town in an industrial state that is viewed as a must-win for the Democrat.

She faces skepticism from some of the state's 200,000 Arab Americans who are frustrated that the sitting vice president has not done more to help end the war in Gaza and scale back aid to Israel. Trump visited Dearborn, the heart of the Arab American community, on Friday (1) and vowed to end the wars in the Middle East.

Trump is due to hold rallies in three smaller cities that could help him galvanize the rural voters who make up an important part of his base. He starts the day in Lititz, Pennsylvania, before heading to Kinston, North Carolina in the afternoon and ending with an evening rally in Macon, Georgia.

It will be the first day since last Tuesday (29) that the two candidates are not campaigning in the same state. On Saturday, their planes shared a swath of tarmac in Charlotte, North Carolina, where both candidates held rallies.

Harris later flew to New York for a surprise appearance on the "Saturday Night Live" comedy show.

In the campaign's final days, Harris has sought to convince voters that she will bring down the cost-of-living -- a top concern after several years of inflation. She has also portrayed Trump as dangerous and erratic and urged Americans to move on from Trump's divisive approach to politics.

"We have an opportunity in this election to turn the page on a decade of Donald Trump trying to keep us divided and afraid of each other. We're done with that," she said in Charlotte.

Trump has argued that Harris, as the sitting vice president, should be held responsible for the rising prices and high levels of immigration of the past several years, which he has portrayed as an existential threat to the country.

At least 75 million Americans have already cast their ballots, according to the University of Florida's Election Lab, equal to nearly half of the 160 million votes cast in the 2020 election.

Still, the winner might not be known for several days, as states like Pennsylvania will need time to tally their mail votes.

(Reuters)