Shock poll has Harris leading Trump in Iowa with 3-point shift toward vice president in red state

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Vice President Kamala Harris leads former President Trump by three points in the final Des Moines Register-sponsored poll of Iowa three days before the election. 

The shock poll showed a seven-point shift from Trump to Harris from September when he had a four-point lead over the vice president (47% to 43%) in the same poll. 

"It’s hard for anybody to say they saw this coming," pollster J. Ann Selzer, president of Selzer & Co., who conducted the poll, told the newspaper on Saturday. "She has clearly leaped into a leading position." 

The poll was conducted between Oct. 28-31, and Harris’ lead is within the 3.4% margin of error. 

Still, the poll appears to be an outlier. Another poll from Emerson College released Saturday showed Trump with a 10-point lead (53% to 43%) and he maintains a decent lead in other polls. 

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Vice President Kamala Harris leads former President Trump by three points in the final Des Moines Register-sponsored poll of Iowa three days before the election. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin | Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

The Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll, which measures support in the Hawkeye State, is nationally recognized, and its final results mirrored the state's results of the 2016 and 2020 elections, according to the Des Moines Register. 

The 2016 poll showed Trump with a seven-point lead over Hillary Clinton and the 2020 poll showed him with the same lead over President Biden. 

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A Trump supporter's Halloween display in Iowa. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Iowa, which is not considered a swing state, is geographically near the Rust Belt swing state of Michigan, and it shares a border with Wisconsin. 

The same poll taken in June showed Trump with a considerable 18-point lead over Biden before he dropped out of the race in July following a shaky debate performance.

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The Nov. 2 poll shows Harris increasing her support among women in a race with a historic gender gap as the vice president has made the issue of abortion front and center in her campaign, according to the newspaper. 

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The remaining 9% of the people polled said they would vote for another candidate, weren’t sure who they would vote for or didn’t plan to vote. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who dropped out of the race as an independent candidate and endorsed Trump, got 3% in the poll. 

Trump's campaign website published a memo about the Des Moines Register's poll, with RNC pollsters calling it a "clear outlier."

"Emerson College, released today, far more closely reflects the state of the actual Iowa electorate and does so with far more transparency in their methodology," the memo read.

"To their credit, the Emerson College poll has an R+4 party split (below 2020 exit polls at R+10), and a Trump +8 recalled 2020 vote margin that aligns with reported returns," the experts explained. "Emerson shows Trump ahead of Harris 53-43 in their survey. In the outlier Des Moines Register poll, they claim Harris leads with seniors (age 65+) by 19 points (55-36). In 2020, President Trump carried seniors 54-45 over Biden according to CNN exit polls."

Fox News Digital's Andrea Margolis contributed to this report.