The 2024 United States presidential election in Iowa was held on Tuesday, November 5, 2024, as part of the 2024 United States presidential election in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated. Iowa voters chose electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote. The state of Iowa has six electoral votes in the Electoral College, following reapportionment due to the 2020 United States census in which the state neither gained nor lost a seat.
For most of the race, Iowa was expected to be a safe red state, though a poll performed by Selzer and Co. and published by The Des Moines Register on November 2 claimed Harris to be up by 3%, leading some to predict a far closer race than initially expected. Nonetheless, Democrats did not seriously contest the state.
In the election, Donald Trump won the state in a landslide, winning the state by 13.2 percentage points, the widest margin for any candidate since 1972. This was the first time a Republican won the state by double digits since 1980, and the first time any presidential nominee had done so since 1996.
Caucuses
Democratic caucuses
During the Iowa Democratic caucuses, in-person caucusing focusing only on party business was held on January 15. Voting on candidates was done exclusively via mail-in ballots from January 12 until Super Tuesday, March 5, 2024. This was the result of a compromise between the Iowa Democratic Party and the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Iowa traditionally holds its race first during the presidential primary and caucuses season, but the DNC originally wanted South Carolina to instead hold its race first on February 3.
Republican caucuses
The Iowa Republican caucuses were held on January 15, 2024, the first-in-the-nation nomination contest of the 2024 Republican primaries. Former president Donald Trump won the primary with the largest margin of victory for a non-incumbent in the Iowa caucuses. Trump's overwhelming victory in the state established his position early as the frontrunner.
Libertarian caucuses
The Iowa Libertarian caucuses were held on January 15, 2024, its first as a recognized party in the state. 2022 U.S. Senate candidate Chase Oliver from Georgia won the non-binding preferential vote with 42.7% of the vote.
General election
Polling
Donald Trump vs. Kamala Harris
Aggregate polls
Donald Trump vs. Kamala Harris vs. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. vs. Chase Oliver
Results
By county
Counties that flipped from Democratic to Republican
- Scott (largest city: Davenport)
By congressional district
Trump won all four congressional districts.
Analysis
An Upper Midwestern state previously considered a battleground and a bellwether state for decades, Iowa voted significantly more Republican than the nation-at-large in both 2016 and 2020 and is now considered a moderately red state at the federal and state levels. Republican Donald Trump won the state by a comfortable margin of 8.2% while losing nationally in 2020, despite polls indicating a close race. Biden became the first Democrat to be elected president without winning Iowa since Jimmy Carter in 1976. Furthermore, during the 2022 midterms, all three statewide incumbent Republicans (Governor Kim Reynolds, Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig, and Secretary of State Paul Pate) won reelection by more than 18%, two of three statewide incumbent Democrats (28-year incumbent Attorney General Tom Miller and 40-year incumbent Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald) lost to Republican challengers, and the remaining incumbent Democrat (four-year incumbent Auditor Rob Sand) won by fewer than 3,000 votes, or 0.24%. Republicans also won all four of Iowa's U.S. House seats.
Iowa handed Republican Donald Trump a decisive victory, doing so by a margin of 219,741 votes. This election marks the third consecutive cycle in which Iowa voted for the Republican candidate in a presidential election. Notably, Trump improved his margins in 98 of 99 counties and gained significant support across all demographics, performing better in suburban, rural, and urban areas. Trump became the first Republican to win Scott County since Ronald Reagan in 1984.
This is the first election since 1968 that Iowa voted to the right of Alaska, a state that only voted Democratic in 1964. Iowa and Florida also voted for Trump by over 13% in 2024 after having previously voted twice for Democrat Barack Obama.