Iowa State Fair Straw Poll

The Iowa State Fair Straw Poll is an informal poll for presidential and Iowa congressional candidates. The poll has been conducted by the Iowa Secretary of State with results posted to their website. It was begun in 2015 after the Republican Party of Iowa announced it would no longer hold its official Iowa Straw Poll given that a majority of presidential candidates declined to participate.

2015 Results

In 2015, the State Fair poll found Donald Trump to be the most favored GOP candidate among 677 votes cast, defeating Ben Carson and Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas). Cruz went on to win the Iowa GOP caucuses, defeating Trump by 4 percent. On the Democratic side, out of a little more than 1,000 votes total, Hillary Clinton was the most popular Democrat defeating Bernie Sanders 49 percent to 45 percent. Clinton went on to defeat Sanders in the Democratic state primary by less than 1 percent.

Democratic Source of results: Iowa Secretary of State

CandidateStraw poll resultsActual caucus resultsDifferencePlace Votes PercentagePlace PercentagePlace Percentage Hillary Clinton 1 1,338 49.19% 1 49.84% -- -0.65% Bernie Sanders 2 1,217 44.17% 2 49.59% -- +5.42% Martin O'Malley 3 127 4.67% 3 0.54% -- -4.13% Lincoln Chafee 4 20 0.74%Withdrawn Jim Webb 5 18 0.66%Withdrawn

Republican Source of results: Iowa Secretary of State

CandidateStraw poll resultsActual caucus resultsDifferencePlace Votes PercentagePlace Votes PercentagePlace PercentageDonald Trump 1 1,830 29.91% 2 45,427 24.30% -1 -5.61%Ben Carson 2 1,185 19.37% 4 17,395 9.30% -2 -10.07%Ted Cruz 3 543 8.88% 1 43,165 27.64% +2 +14.24%Carly Fiorina 4 459 7.50% 7 3,485 1.86% -3 -5.64%Marco Rubio 5 370 6.05% 3 43,165 23.12% +2 +17.07%Scott Walker 6 324 5.30%WithdrawnJeb Bush 7 312 5.10% 6 5,238 2.80% +1 -2.30%Bobby Jindal 8 225 3.68%WithdrawnMike Huckabee 9 188 3.07% 9 3,345 1.79% -- -1.28%Rand Paul 10 182 2.97% 5 8,481 4.54% +5 +1.57%John Kasich 11 160 2.62% 8 3,474 1.86% +3 -0.76%Rick Perry 12 137 2.24%WithdrawnChris Christie 13 66 1.08% 10 3,284 1.76% +3 -0.68%Rick Santorum 14 65 1.06% 11 1,783 0.95% +3 -0.11%Lindsey Graham 15 39 0.64%WithdrawnGeorge Pataki 16 24 0.39%WithdrawnMark Everson 17 8 0.13%WithdrawnJim Gilmore 18 1 0.02% 12 12 0.01% +6 -0.01%

2019 Results

In 2019, the State Fair saw a record-setting attendance of just under 1.2 million people over the course of its 11-day run. The Straw Poll result was published on August 19, 2019. On the Republican side, in total 1,976 votes were cast for 2 candidates. On the Democratic side, there were 24 candidates listed in the presidential poll and 2,118 votes cast.

Democratic

CandidateStraw poll resultsActual caucus resultsDifferencePlace Votes PercentagePlace Votes PercentagePlace PercentageJoe Biden 1 374 17.7% 4 26,291 14.9% -3 -2.8%Elizabeth Warren 2 364 17.2% 3 32,589 18.5% -1 +1.3%Pete Buttigieg 3 292 13.8% 2 37,572 21.3% +1 +7.5%Bernie Sanders 4 215 10.2% 1 43,581 24.7% +3 +14.5%Kamala Harris 5 178 8.4%WithdrawnCory Booker 6 129 6.1%WithdrawnTulsi Gabbard 7 101 4.8% 9 341 0.2% -2 -4.6%Amy Klobuchar 8 73 3.5% 5 22,454 12.7% +3 +9.2%Tom Steyer 9 60 2.8% 7 3,061 1.7% +2 -1.1%Andrew Yang 10 58 2.7% 6 8,914 5.1% +3 +2.4%Beto O'Rourke 11 46 2.2%WithdrawnMarianne Williamson 12 33 1.6%WithdrawnSteve Bullock13331.6%WithdrawnJulian Castro14321.5%WithdrawnJohn Delaney15261.2%WithdrawnKirsten Gillibrand16221.0%WithdrawnMichael Bennet 17 19 0.9% 10 164 1.0% +7 -0.1%Bill de Blasio 18 18 0.9%WithdrawnJohn Hickenlooper 19 14 0.7%WithdrawnJay Inslee 20 11 0.5%WithdrawnTim Ryan 21 7 0.3%WithdrawnSeth Moulton 22 5 0.2%WithdrawnJoe Sestak 23 4 0.2%WithdrawnWayne Messam 24 4 0.2%Withdrawn

Republican CandidateStraw poll resultsActual caucus resultsDifferencePlace Votes PercentagePlace Votes PercentagePlace PercentageDonald Trump 1 1,902 96.26% 1 31,421 97.14% -- -0.88%Bill Weld 2 74 3.74% 2 425 1.31% -- -2.43%

2023 Results Democratic Source of results: Iowa Secretary of State CandidateStraw poll resultsPlace Votes PercentageJoe Biden 1 732 66.97%Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 2 205 18.76%Marianne Williamson 3 156 14.27%

Republican Source of results: Iowa Secretary of State CandidateStraw poll resultsActual caucus resultsDifferencePlace Votes PercentagePlace Votes PercentagePlace PercentageDonald Trump 1 1,501 42.47% 1 56,260 51.01% -- +8.54%Ron DeSantis 2 541 15.31% 2 23,420 21.23% -- +5.92%Tim Scott 3 392 11.09%WithdrawnVivek Ramaswamy 4 331 9.37% 4 8,449 7.66% -- -1.71%Perry Johnson 5 220 6.23%WithdrawnNikki Haley 6 133 3.76% 3 21,085 19.12% +3 +15.36%Asa Hutchinson 7 120 3.40% 6 191 0.17% +1 -3.23%Mike Pence 8 97 2.74%WithdrawnDoug Burgum 9 96 2.72%WithdrawnWill Hurd 10 37 1.05%WithdrawnRyan Binkley 11 27 0.76% 5 774 0.70% +6 -0.06%Francis Suarez 12 23 0.65%WithdrawnLarry Elder 13 16 0.45%Withdrawn

Libertarian Source of results: Iowa Secretary of State CandidateStraw poll resultsActual caucus resultsDifferencePlace Votes PercentagePlace PercentagePlace PercentageChase Oliver 1 (tied) 27 18.88% 1 42.70% -- +23.82%Raymond Dude Wagner 1 (tied) 27 18.88%Did not competeAaron Avouris 3 (tied) 11 7.69%Did not competeMelissa Biondi 3 (tied) 11 7.69%Did not competeHugo Valdez Garcia 5 10 6.99%Did not competeDavid Reed DeSilva 6 (tied) 8 5.59%Did not competeJon Stewart 6 (tied) 8 5.59%Did not competeDavid Dunlap 8 (tied) 6 4.20%Did not competeJacob Hornberger 8 (tied) 6 4.20% 8 (tied) 1.12% -- -2.08%Kevin Babicz 10 (tied) 5 3.50%Did not competeCharles Griffith Ferry 10 (tied) 5 3.50%Did not competeAntonio Gagnon 12 (tied) 4 2.80%Did not competeMike ter Maat 12 (tied) 4 2.80% 3 13.48% +9 +10.68%Russell DeLeon 14 (tied) 3 2.10%Did not competeLars Mapstead 14 (tied) 3 2.10% 8 (tied) 1.12% +6 -0.98%Joshua Rodriguez 16 (tied) 2 1.40%Did not competeNathan J. Vaught Jr. 16 (tied) 2 1.40%Did not competeSeymour Art Lee 18 1 0.70%Did not competeBeau Lindsey 19 (tied) 0 0.00%Did not competeKevin Tucker 19 (tied) 0 0.00%Did not compete

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