New poll: Grassley, Clinton leading in Iowa

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley are leading their respective races in Iowa, according to a new poll.

The survey is the first in months to measure the presidential race in Iowa since the major parties resolved their primary races. Iowa is one of about a dozen states considered pivotal to this year's presidential contest.

Conducted last week by Public Policy Polling, the survey said that Clinton is leading likely GOP nominee Donald Trump, 44 to 41 percent with 15 percent undecided.

As in national surveys, both candidates are seen more negatively by Iowans than positively, although Trump is in a worse position than Clinton.

The poll said that just 33 percent of Iowans have a favorable opinion of Trump, while 64 percent see him negatively. Forty-two percent see Clinton in a favorable light, while 55 percent have an unfavorable opinion.

Relatively few Iowans haven't formed opinions about the two major party presidential candidates, according to the poll. Just 3 percent of Iowans responding to the survey said they weren't sure how they felt about Clinton, while just 4 percent expressed no view of Trump.

The poll was conducted June 9 and 10 of 630 Iowans who are registered to vote. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points and was commissioned by the Constitutional Responsibility Project, a group targeting Grassley over the Supreme Court vacancy controversy.

The poll had better news for Grassley than Trump. The PPP poll said the Iowa Republican leads Democratic nominee Patty Judge by a margin of 48 to 41 percent with 11 percent undecided.

The poll also said that 49 percent of Iowans have a favorable opinion of Grassley, while 42 percent do not.

Iowans weren't so sure what they think about Judge, who was the state's lieutenant governor from 2007 to 2011. While 34 percent viewed her positively, the same percentage had no opinion. Thirty-two percent had an unfavorable opinion.

The new survey appears to show a slight uptick in Grassley's standing among Iowans from April, when a Hart Research Associates poll put Grassley's job approval rating at 42 percent. The new PPP poll puts it at 48 percent.

Still, that is down from a Hart Research poll two years ago that had 60 percent of Iowans seeing Grassley favorably and only 19 percent unfavorably.

A Morning Consult poll, which also was conducted in April, said Grassley's approval rating was 55 percent. Twenty-nine percent saw him unfavorably, the poll said.