New poll finds Trump leading Biden by 1 point in Iowa

A new Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll released Monday evening shows President Trump leading former Vice President Joe Biden by only 1 percentage point in Iowa, a state he won in 2016 by 9 points.

Trump has the support of 44 percent of Iowans, compared to Biden with 43 percent. The poll of 674 likely voters was conducted June 7 to 10, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.

"I think it's obviously nothing that Joe Biden should take for granted, because he's not leading," pollster J. Ann Selzer told the Register. "But if the election were held today, Biden has a far better shot than anybody thought."

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Trump's numbers have dropped since March, when a Register poll found that 51 percent of likely voters supported Trump while 41 percent backed Biden. Additionally, 50 percent of Iowans approved of the job Trump was doing as president in March — up 4 points from February — and 46 percent said the United States was on the right track.

Today, as the country deals with the coronavirus pandemic and anti-racism and police brutality protests, Trump's approval rating among Iowans is at 45 percent and just 22 percent believe the country is on the right track.

Over the last month, the Trump campaign has spent more than $400,000 on ads in Iowa, the ad-tracking firm Advertising Analytics reports. At the same time, the Lincoln Project, a political action committee formed by current and ex-Republicans who want to see Trump defeated in November, spent $150,000 to air ads against him.