Survey Says is a weekly series rounding up the most important polling trends or data points you need to know about, plus a vibe check on a trend that’s driving politics or culture.
In Iowa, Republicans face a potential bruising that could leave the red state looking pretty purple after November.
Once a bellwether, Iowa has jagged to the right recently. In 2024, Donald Trump won it by over 13 percentage points, making for the state’s largest margin of victory in a presidential election since 1972. And two years before that, in 2022, it reelected Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds by over 18 points.
In a normal election year, a Democrat would likely have little chance of winning the keys to Terrace Hill, the governor’s official residence. But with Trump’s war of choice in the Middle East and domestic prices climbing, this isn’t shaping up to be a normal election year. In fact, Iowa’s governor race may prove to be something of a bellwether for state executives across the nation.
In the Hawkeye State, presumptive Democratic nominee Rob Sand, the state auditor, is handily leading Republican front-runner Randy Feenstra, who represents Iowa’s 4th Congressional District. A recent poll conducted by Echelon Insights for NetChoice found Sand with 51% support among likely voters, while Feenstra scored just 39%.
Better yet, Sand’s support appears more solid. While 12% of voters said they would “probably” support either candidate, 39% said they would “definitely” back Sand, and just 24% said the same about their support for Feenstra.
This aligns with the only other public survey released so far this year. In late March, pollster GBAO, working on behalf of a group of moderate Democrats, found Sand leading Feenstra by 8 points, 50% to 42%.
Trump 2.0 has battered Iowa, making it ripe for Democrats’ picking. In April 2025, the president’s tariffs led China to cut off soybean imports from the U.S., delivering disproportionate harm on Iowa, a top grower of the crop. While China has resumed imports, Iowans are still struggling. The state is one of only three that saw its per-capita personal income contract in the fourth quarter of 2025.
The broader Republican brand appears to be hurting as well. Trump’s job approval in Iowa is 14 points underwater, according to The Economist. And Reynolds is one of only two governors to have a net-negative approval rating, per Morning Consult.
The only governor with a similarly bad rap? Alaska’s Mike Dunleavy, also a Republican.
Dunleavy is term-limited from running again, but you wouldn’t expect a state that Trump won by 13 points in 2024—and that has only once in its history backed a Democrat for the presidency—to be competitive this year.
And yet.
A recent poll from Alaska Survey Center shows Democrat Tom Begich, a state representative, prevailing with nearly 54% of the vote in the final round of ranked-choice voting, the state’s electoral system wherein voters rank the candidates rather than select only one.
Begich’s support appears to be growing as well. The pollster’s survey from this past October showed him winning just over 50% of the final vote.
Even if Begich were to lose by a narrow margin, the result would be shocking. A Democratic gubernatorial candidate hasn’t won better than 45% of the vote since 1998, when the state last elected a Democrat to the position. And in 2022, Dunleavy won reelection by 26 points, though that margin of victory is artificially high due to him facing two high-profile challengers.
Begich is surely benefitting from his family name. His father, Nick Begich Sr., was the state’s representative in the early 1970s before his presumed death in a plane crash. (His body was never recovered.) Tom’s brother, Mark, was the state’s Democratic senator from 2009 to 2015, and his nephew is Nick Begich III, the state’s Republican congressman, who is running for reelection this year.
From the Last Frontier, we roll down to the Peach State, where polling shows that former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has a real shot at flipping Georgia’s governor’s mansion. The Echelon Insights/NetChoice poll finds her polling ahead of both Republican front-runners—Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and healthcare executive Rick Jackson—by 6 points each.
Bottoms has a clear lead in the Democratic primary, but Jones and Jackson are neck-and-neck on the Republican side, according to FiftyPlusOne’s polling average. However, if state Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger, who is polling third, were to eke out a win, Bottoms would face even steeper competition. The same poll finds her up only 2 points over Raffensberger.
A Democrat leading polling in Georgia may not come as a shocker. After all, the state has two Democratic senators, and it backed Joe Biden for president in 2020.
However, those are at the federal level, and state government is another matter. A Democrat has not won a top executive role in Georgia—governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, or secretary of state—since 2006. That’s a flip of the phenomena in which red states tend to be more open to electing Democrats to state office than to federal office (see: Kansas and Kentucky).
In other red states, polling has shown Democratic gubernatorial candidates lagging their Republican rivals, though sometimes not by much.
In Ohio, another ex-bellwether, Democratic nominee Amy Acton is just 5 points behind Republican nominee Vivek Ramaswamy in the Echelon Insights/NetChoice poll. Two other recent polls have had them in a virtual tie. For context, in 2022, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine won by 25 points.
And while Florida may generally seem out of Democrats’ reach, most recent surveys show the top two Democratic candidates—Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings and former Republican (you read that right) Rep. David Jolly—trailing the Republican front-runner, Rep. Byron Donalds, by single digits. That’s surprising given that Gov. Ron DeSantis won a blowout 19-point victory just four years ago, and no Democrat has won the governorship since 1994, though some have come very close.
The pain of Trump 2.0 and chronic Republican mismanagement are rattling the foundations of governors’ mansions the nation over. And if these polls are to be believed, many red-state voters want Democrats to come in and clean up the mess.
Any updates?
Trump is putting his face on some U.S. passports, but very few Americans want it there. When shown the passport’s design, only 14% of Americans approve of it, according to the latest YouGov/Economist poll. Meanwhile, nearly two-thirds (63%) disapprove. Talk about a slap in the face.
Spirit Airlines: America knew it, hated it, but that doesn’t mean they want it gone. While 81% of Americans are familiar with the Spirit brand—the sixth best among all major airlines and ahead of regional giants like Frontier Airlines—only 22% have a favorable view of it, landing it in 20th place, according to YouGov data. But 40% say Spirit’s closure will make flights more expensive, while only 27% say it will have no effect and 3% say it will make flights cheaper, per YouGov.
Vibe check
Fighting out of this corner, wearing a long red tie and overlarge suit, and weighing in at a reported 224 pounds is President Donald Trump! And now, fighting out of the other corner, wearing a Roblox shirt and doing the floss, and weighing in at 60 pounds is an 8-year-old boy!
Yes, amid a bizarre Oval Officee presentation on Tuesday, Trump asked a young boy, “Are you a strong person? Do you think you can take me in a fight?”
As it turns out, Americans say they aren’t so sure who would win that fight. A new YouGov poll finds that 45% say Trump would win, while 31% say an 8-year-old boy would win. The remaining 23% say they aren’t sure.
However, they’re much more certain that they would prevail over 79-year-old Trump in a fight. Most Americans (55%) say they would win, while only 19% say Trump would. Similar shares of Democrats (5%) and independents (11%) back Trump in the hypothetical matchup, but a plurality of Republicans (39%) also back Trump. Then again, they probably don’t want to beat up the leader of their cult.
