Donald Trump and Kamala Harris

TOI correspondent in Washington: Iowa, a non-battlefield state name after a Native American tribe meaning “those who sleep,” shook the world. 2024 presidential elections. Popular survey results reveal shocking results Kamala Harris beat Donald Trump 47-44 – which is within the margin of error – is the first sign that she is competitive even in the American heartland, which is largely Trump territory.
Trump won Iowa in 2020 and 2016, and he was considered so far ahead (by 5+) that both camps didn’t bother to campaign there, as in the case of 42 other states which go one way or the other by +5. , leaving only seven states in play. But a poll conducted by the latest Des Moines Register-Mediacom three days before the election showed Harris erasing Trump’s 18-point lead (when Biden was her opponent) and gaining momentum. advance.
The poll was conducted by Selzer & Co., a company run by a well-known pollster. Anne Selzerwhich has a good track record of accurate polling. “It’s hard for anyone to say they saw this coming. She has clearly moved into a leadership position,” Selzer told the local Des Moines Registered newspaper, which conducted the poll with a banner headline “New Candidate, New Ball Game.”
Iowa has only six electoral votes, but the poll’s implications, if accurate, extend well beyond other Midwestern states where Trump is either winning (Nebraska, Kansas, Ohio, Missouri) or in a close fight (Wisconsin, Michigan). The main takeaway from the Selzer poll is that women are overwhelmingly opting for Harris – probably far more than previous national surveys show (+11). In Iowa, independent women support Harris by a margin of 28 points, and older women (65 and older) support her over Trump by a margin of more than 2 to 1, or 63% to 28%.
“This is a stunning poll. But Ann Seltzer has as stellar a record as any pollster when it comes to predicting election outcomes in her state.
Women are at the origin of this wave. Any omens for the country??” asks David Axelrod, political consultant and former collaborator of Barack Obama, even as Democrats rejoice in the election.
The surge in women’s support for Kamala Harris appears to be due not only to Trump’s restrictions on women’s reproductive rights through the Supreme Court, but also to his vicious attacks on women, often denigrating them as stupid, stupid and low IQ when challenged.
Some of the trolling and denigrating comments from his supporters have been horrific. At a rally in North Carolina on Sunday, Trump was delivering his familiar pitch that Harris didn’t work at McDonald’s when a supporter in the crowd appeared to shout “She worked in the corner!” suggesting she was a whore. “Remember, it’s other people saying it, it’s not me,” Trump responded.
It was a ridiculous departure from the grace that John McCain, the 2008 Republican nominee, showed when one of his supporters disparaged Obama by saying that he is Arab and cannot be trusted , and McCain immediately corrected him, saying, “No ma’am, this is a decent family.” man, an American citizen, and I happen to have political differences with him. »
Trump has also offended many women with gratuitous comments about reproductive rights, including his latest boast: “I consider myself the father of fertilization.”