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. 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
PlaceCandidateVotesPercentage
1Hillary Clinton1,33849.19%
2Bernie Sanders1,21744.17%
3Martin O'Malley1274.67%
4Lincoln Chafee200.74%
5Jim Webb180.66%

Republican

Source of results: Iowa Secretary of State
PlaceCandidateVotesPercentage
1Donald Trump1,83029.91%
2Ben Carson1,18519.37%
3Ted Cruz5438.88%
4Carly Fiorina4597.50%
5Marco Rubio3706.05%
6Scott Walker3245.30%
7Jeb Bush3125.10%
8Bobby Jindal2253.68%
9Mike Huckabee1883.07%
10Rand Paul1822.97%
11John Kasich1602.62%
12Rick Perry1372.24%
13Chris Christie661.08%
14Rick Santorum651.06%
15Lindsey Graham390.64%
16George Pataki240.39%
17Mark Everson80.13%
18Jim Gilmore10.02%

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. Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate said, this Straw Poll has historically been a "pretty good" indicator for the outcome of "the race", despite it being only the second time the straw poll had been conducted.
PlaceCandidateVotesPercentage
1Joe Biden37417.7%
2Elizabeth Warren36417.2%
3Pete Buttigieg29213.8%
4Bernie Sanders21510.2%
5Kamala Harris1788.4%
6Cory Booker1296.1%
7Tulsi Gabbard1014.8%
8Amy Klobuchar733.5%
9Tom Steyer602.8%
10Andrew Yang582.7%
11Beto O'Rourke462.2%
12Marianne Williamson331.6%
13Steve Bullock331.6%
14Julian Castro321.5%
15John Delaney261.2%
16Kirsten Gillibrand221.0%
17Michael Bennet190.9%
18Bill De Blasio180.9%
19John Hickenlooper140.7%
20Jay Inslee110.5%
21Tim Ryan70.3%
22Seth Moulton50.2%
23Joe Sestak40.2%
24Wayne Messam40.2%