Was It Iowa’s Abortion Ban?

Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

We’re still pretty much where we were last night on that Selzer poll. It’s hard to know what it means or whether it matters. It’s just one poll. The most interesting day-after analysis I’ve seen centers on the fact that an abortion ban went into effect in the state just in July. And it went into effect pretty clearly against a big majority of the state’s residents. An earlier Selzer poll already showed Iowa much closer than people anticipated. It’s also a state with a lot of white people with college degrees. So there’s some argument that it might be more Harris friendly than people expect. It’s even occurred that picking up some of the ad spend out of Nebraska could be having an impact in Iowa. So maybe those are parts of an explanation. But it seems like folks working in the inside DC publications have fixed on the abortion ban blowback theory of the case. But that in itself is pretty disquieting news for the Trump campaign, to put it mildly. Note too that a lot of these polls we’re seeing now show abortion moving straight to the top of the issue matrix for voters.

Latest Editors' Blog
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: