Undecided voters are making up their minds in Iowa’s tight U.S. Senate race between Democrat Josh Turek and Republican Ashley Hinson, but the race remains neck-and-neck even as more Iowans decide which candidate they’ll choose.
Iowa is among this year's most competitive Senate races, as Turek and Hinson vie for the open seat left by retiring Republican Senator Joni Ernst. Polls continue to show a tight race between the two after their first debate on October 7 where tariffs, immigration and voting records played a major role. A second debate was held last week, where the candidates sparred again over the Iran war, tariffs and immigration.
Earlier in the race, the percentage of undecided voters was high, at times in double digits. Independent voters who are not registered with a specific political party make up an impactful part of the state’s electorate, and they are among the most likely voters to choose a split-ticket at the ballot box come Election Day. Even as the number of undecided voters drops, the narrow gap between Turek and Hinson remains steady, with both candidates seen in the lead, depending on the poll.
Newsweek reached out to both campaigns by email for comment on Monday.
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Josh Turek vs. Ashley Hinson: What Latest Polls Show
The most recent poll to publish was conducted by conservative pollster the Trafalgar Group, which was held between October 13 and 15 and queried 1,094 likely voters. Of those, nearly 46 percent said they planned to vote for Hinson, compared to 44 percent who said Turek. More than 6 percent remained undecided. However, the percentage of those undecided has dropped since Trafalgar’s last Iowa Senate poll from September 16 to 18 of 1,089 likely voters. While Hinson also carried a two-point lead over Turek at 44 percent to 42 percent at that time, more than 10 percent of voters were still undecided.
Marist polls from September and October showed a similar pattern.
A September poll by Marist that surveyed 1,050 registered Iowa voters between September 17 and 20 found 5 percent were undecided, while a poll of 1,100 registered voters in October found 4 percent of polltakers were still undecided. In the September poll, Turek had a lead over Hinson of 50 percent to 42 percent, which narrowed considerably by the October poll, in which Turek had a three-point lead of 48 percent to Hinson’s 45 percent.
A YouGov poll shows one of the most significant changes in undecided voters. In October, a poll of 2,245 likely voters between October 6 and 12 found that 4 percent of polltakers were still undecided, while 47 percent said they planned to vote for Turek and 46 percent said Hinson. The number of undecided voters dropped significantly since YouGov released their September poll numbers, in which 2,169 registered voters were surveyed between September 3 and 8, and 11 percent said they were still undecided. In September's poll, 44 percent said they'd vote for Turek and 43 percent said Hinson.
“The race is so tight that it is hard to know how the undecideds will break,” John Geer, Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt University who specializes in public opinion, told Newsweek on Monday. “In this nail-biter, it will be turnout that likely drives the outcome more than the undecideds. Do Republicans vote in high enough numbers to get Hinson across the finish line? Or are Democrats so motivated that they turnout in record numbers carrying Turek to victory?”
Both scenarios are possible, Geer said, who warned that since the race is so close, polls “lack the precision to say how things will break with any certainty.”
Will There Be Another Iowa Debate?
There will not be another Iowa debate between Hinson and Turek. The candidates agreed to two debates, which took place on October 7 and October 13.
President Donald Trump will be traveling to Iowa for two political rallies in support of Hinson in the coming weeks. Trump is set to visit Iowa on October 22 and November 1.
When Is Election Day?
Election Day is Tuesday, November 3, although early voting has already started in Iowa and will continue through November 2. Two percent of Iowa’s more than 2 million registered voters have already cast an early ballot, a tracker published by NBC News showed.
Why Is Iowa an Important State in the 2026 Midterms?
This year's midterm elections could flip control of the House and Senate as Republican candidates work to overcome widespread concerns from voters tied to the economy, inflation, rising fuel costs, and the Iran war. Although Iowa has voted Republican in the Senate elections since 2008, the state has also had a history of voting for presidential candidates from both political parties, making the current political environment a competitive one. Trump won Iowa the last three election cycles, but before that, former President Barack Obama won Iowa twice.
Timothy Hagle, a professor at the University of Iowa and an expert on Iowa politics, told Newsweek that undecided voters hold the key to this year's Senate election.
"I suspect that few Democrats and Republicans are among the undecided voters. That means most of them are No Party voters," he said on Monday. "In the past we've often seen that most late deciders tend to go to one candidate in a race. That may be more likely when there's an incumbent in a race. Of course, the Iowa Senate race is open, so it might not be all that unusual to see them split more evenly."
When Iowa last had an open Senate seat, Ernst was running in 2014. Iowa independents split their votes 45 percent for Ernst and 40 percent for her democratic opponent, Bruce Braley, Hagle said.
This year, Iowa is among several Senate races, including Texas, Michigan, Ohio, and Alaska, in which the final results could go either way.
“One thing to keep in mind is that there will be a tide in this election that will shape the final outcome,” Geer told Newsweek. “In the eight toss up races in the Senate this year, they are not likely to break four wins for each party. More likely there will be a partisan tide that will allow one party to win 6 or so of those close seats."
He continued: "As in 2024, Trump carried all the battleground states by narrow margins. He enjoyed a 2-percentage point red shift that allowed him to capture the presidency. It looks like there will be a blue tide in 2026. But that assumes the polls are right and we know enough to realize polls can miss underlying currents in the electorate.”
Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here. Contact Newsweek editors for this story: Anthony Murray and Jason Lemon.