Campaign Almanac: Trump leads Biden in Register poll of Iowa voters

Half of likely voters in Iowa support former President Donald Trump in the 2024 election, according to a Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll released Monday.

The poll found 50 percent of likely Iowa voters would vote for Trump, a Republican, if the election were held today, compared to 32 percent for Democratic President Joe Biden.

Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. garnered 9 percent, while 2 percent of voters support Libertarian Chase Oliver. Three percent said they would pick someone else, 3 percent were not sure and another 1 percent would not vote.

The poll, conducted by Selzer & Co., surveyed 632 likely voters between June 9 and 14, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.

The poll suggests Trump's conviction on 34 felony counts for falsifying business records relating to hush money payments to an adult film star has not weakened his support in the state. In the last Iowa Poll, taken before that conviction, Trump pulled in 48 percent of support to Biden's 33 percent.

Biden also has a lower favorability among Iowa voters than Trump.

The poll found 66 percent of likely voters viewed Biden unfavorably and 33 percent viewed him favorably. Trump was viewed unfavorably by 47 percent of voters, and favorably by 51 percent.

A majority of Iowans also disapproved of Biden's handling of inflation, immigration, the war in Gaza and abortion. Inflation and immigration gathered the highest share of disapproval, at 69 percent and 68 percent, respectively. Twenty-five percent approve of Biden's job on inflation, while 24 percent approve on immigration.

Libertarian joins Iowa 3rd District race

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Marco Battaglia announced he will run for Congress as a Libertarian in Iowa's 3rd Congressional District.

Battaglia is a Des Moines resident and a correctional officer with the Iowa Department of Corrections. Battaglia was nominated at a district convention this month, and said he plans to submit paperwork to appear on the November general election ballot.

According to Battaglia's campaign website, he supports positions like cutting government spending and abolishing the Federal Reserve, reducing foreign aid to Ukraine and Israel, reducing agriculture subsidies for large corporations and ending mass surveillance programs.

He drew a comparison to Kentucky U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican who often aligns on policy with Libertarians, and said he would be Massie's ally in the House. He criticized the support from Iowa's Republicans to reauthorize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which opponents argue violates Americans' rights to privacy.

"A big thing is just our inherent liberties of the people in the district. I've just been watching the way that our House reps have been voting, and (Zach) Nunn specifically," Battaglia said in an interview. "There was a chance to really highlight mass spying and Fourth Amendment issues, and I feel like there was a big failure on the part of not just Nunn, but all our House reps there."

Battaglia joins a competitive race for the seat that covers parts of southern and central Iowa, including Des Moines. Democrat Lanon Baccam is challenging incumbent Republican Zach Nunn for the seat Nunn won by less than a percentage point in 2022.

Battaglia is no stranger to campaigning: He was the Libertarian candidate for lieutenant governor in 2022, a 2018 candidate for attorney general and ran in the 2018 Libertarian primary for governor.

While third-party candidates are rarely elected to office, Battaglia said a secondary goal of his campaign is to grow the Libertarian Party. Libertarians earned major party status in Iowa in 2022 when their gubernatorial candidate won 2 percent of the vote. To maintain major party status, Libertarian presidential candidate Chase Oliver will need to earn at least 2 percent of the vote this November.

Battaglia said he would be campaigning alongside Oliver this summer to rally support for the candidate.

"The way that the polls are coming out, kind of showing significant disfavor of the top two on the ticket, I think that there's definitely an opportunity for their ticket to do historically well in Iowa," Battaglia said.

Gazette-Lee Des Moines Bureau