MOLINE, Ill. — Candidates have one month to convince voters to side with them in what could be some of the tightest races both for the presidential race and congressional races in Iowa and Illinois. Western Illinois University's Keith Boeckelman and Augustana College's Paul Baumgardner visited GMQC Saturday to discuss where the election stands one month out.
The latest Ipsos poll finds Vice President Kamala Harris has a 48% to 44% lead over former President Donald Trump, unchanged from polling conducted among the same group of likely voters in August.
In Iowa, a Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll finds that Trump leads Harris 47% to 43% among likely Iowa voters. It's a far slimmer margin than the 18-point lead the former president held over President Biden earlier this year.
Is Iowa at play in the presidential race?
"I still think that it leans pretty heavily to the right and to the Republican party," Baumgardner said. "If you look at how President Trump did in Iowa, both in 2016 and 2020 these were not close races, right? So I do think it's the case that Kamala Harris has narrowed the margin, but I still think it's likely that 4%, 5% margin stays stable, but it also depends on turnout, right? ... Something could happen to change the mix, but as of now, I still think the state is likely in former President Trump's camp."
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What does this poll mean for the congressional races in Iowa?
"Congressional races have been nationalized in recent years, and so more and more people are voting their national party preference rather than maybe the specific person," Boeckelman said. "So I guess if the race is tied in Iowa, that probably suggests an advantage to the Democratic candidate Christiana Bohannan, but we'll see how it plays out. There was a Des Moines Register poll that showed a generic Democrat leading that district by about three points, but generic people don't run, actual candidates run, so we'll see how it plays out."
On Friday, nonpartisan election analysts at the Cook Political Report moved Iowa's 1st District U.S. House race into a "toss-up," indicating either party could win. The group had previously rated the district as "leaning" toward Republicans.
When Bohannan and incumbent Mariannette Miller-Meeks faced each other in 2022, Miller-Meeks won by about six percent of the vote.
In 2020, Miller-Meeks defeated Democrat Rita Hart by just six votes. About 90,000 more people voted in that race than they did in the 2022 Midterms. Baumgardner expects the turnout will be higher in 2024, given the presidential cycle.
"I've also been interested in the kid of materials that the two candidates have been putting out," Baumgardner said. "If you look at their campaign websites, if you look at their mailers, if you look at the TV ads that I'm sure many people have been seeing routinely, one thing that you don't see a lot from Bohannan is a close connection to either Harris or Biden. You don't see a lot of name dropping to the current president or to the vice president. That's really interesting, right? The current president is a Democrat, Bohannan is a Democrat, but Joe Biden has historically low approval numbers, even after he dropped out of the 2024 race. Seems to be a concerted effort right now by Bohannan and even Eric Sorensen here in Illinois to kind of keep the president and even the vice president at an arm's length."
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What does the race look like for the Illinois 17th?
Incumbent Democrat Eric Sorensen faces retired judge, Republican Joe McGraw. The Cook Political Report lists that race as "likely Democrat."
Boeckelman agreed with Baumgardner, saying Sorensen is trying to denationalize the race.
"It's a little bit back more toward the old time approach of members of Congress saying that is what I've delivered for the district," he said.
On election night in 2022, the race between Sorensen and Republican Esther Joy King was too close to call. Sorensen was later declared the winner by a margin of 4%. Joy King lost the race with that same margin in 2020 against incumbent Democrat Cheri Bustos. The seat hasn't been held by a Republican since Bobby Schilling won in 2010 and served for one term.
"Probably being a presidential year is to Sorensen's advantage," Boeckelman said. "Also, this district is very gerrymandered, frankly, to help a Democrat win. The Illinois Democrats really drew the state up to have 14 Democrat seats and three Republicans, and they were successful in that."
"This was the last district to be called in 2022, that's how close it was," Baumgardner said. "We're focusing on competitive districts right now. I think we should note that this is an oddity. It's a rarity now in American politics. The overwhelming majority of local, state and even national offices are not competitive races. Even if you go back a few months to the Illinois primaries, there were many, many seats that were not contested. There were not multiple candidates in the Republican and Democratic Party. It's a nationwide problem, but it's also a problem we see here in Illinois. We don't have competitive races. So it is a fascinating in this particular congressional district that we actually see one."
You can watch Boeckelman and Baumgardner's full conversation on GMQC Saturday above.