Donald Trump has an overwhelming lead over every other GOP candidate for president in the latest Iowa Poll, just as he has in every other poll conducted this year. According to the new poll results, which the Des Moines Register published over the course of this week, Iowa Republicans aren’t concerned that the 91 felony charges against Trump will damage his chances of being elected president. But they are worried he isn’t anti-abortion enough.
Fifty-two percent of respondents in the poll said they disagree with Trump’s characterization of a six-week abortion ban signed into law by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as “a terrible mistake.” Trump made that comment during an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press that aired in September. In discussing the extremely restrictive abortion law DeSantis signed into law in April, Trump said, “I think what he did is a terrible thing and a terrible mistake.”
Gov. Kim Reynolds, who signed a six-week abortion ban into law two months before Trump’s comment, tweeted an indirect response to it, saying, “It’s never a ‘terrible thing’ to protect innocent life,” and that she was proud of having signed the ban. Like almost every other Republican, Reynolds didn’t cite Trump by name while mildly criticizing him, attempt to engage with Trump over the issue, or direct readers of her tweet to the former president’s comments.
It’s never a “terrible thing” to protect innocent life. I’m proud of the fetal heartbeat bill the Iowa legislature passed and I signed in 2018 and again earlier this year.
— Kim Reynolds (@KimReynoldsIA) September 19, 2023
It’s not surprising that a majority of the 404 likely Republican caucusgoers polled by Selzer & Co. between Oct. 22 and 26, disagreed with Trump’s criticism of DeSantis’s abortion ban. Forty-one percent of respondents said restricting abortion is “extremely important” to them, and another 38 percent said restrictions were “important” to them. Despite all that, Trump’s comment didn’t damage his lead in the Iowa Poll, or improve DeSantis’s standing.
In the new poll, 43 percent of respondents said Trump was the first choice in the upcoming Jan. 15 Republican Caucus. In the previous poll conducted by Selzer & Co. in August, Trump was the first choice of 42 percent of likely caucusgoers.
In the August poll, DeSantis was the first choice of 19 percent of respondents. In the new poll, that number dropped to 16 percent. Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley was also the first choice of 16 percent of the respondents in the new poll, a substantial increase from 6 percent she scored in the August poll. None of the other candidates received support from more than 7 percent of respondents asked who their first choice in the caucus is.
DeSantis and Haley have begun attacking each other directly and by name in recent weeks, even as both are still very cautious in criticizing Trump. DeSantis and Haley will both participate in the third Republican candidates’ debate on Nov. 8. Trump will not. The former president has refused to participate in any debates.
In the new Iowa Poll, 57 percent of respondents said it doesn’t matter if Trump doesn’t participate in debates before the caucus.
