Franken's Chances of Beating Chuck Grassley With Under 3 Months to Election

Democrat Mike Franken hopes to defeat incumbent Republican Senator Chuck Grassley in Iowa in the upcoming midterm, aiming to flip a GOP-held seat to help his party retain—or potentially increase—its slim majority in the Senate—but with less three months until Election Day on November 8, polls suggest he is fighting an uphill battle.

Grassley, 88, is one of the oldest and longest-serving senators, having held the seat for more than four decades. Franken, 64, a retired vice admiral in the Navy and a former Defense Department official, previously ran an unsuccessful campaign for the Democratic Party's nomination to challenge Iowa's other GOP senator, Joni Ernst, in 2020. This time, Franken won his party's nomination with more than 55 percent of the vote in June.

Although Franken appears to be performing better against Grassley than previous Democratic challengers, the incumbent Republican still looks likely to win reelection. In a conservative state that went for former President Donald Trump in 2016 and again in 2020, with two Republican senators and a GOP governor, any Democratic contender would face difficulties breaking through.

A recent survey conducted by Iowans for Tax Relief Foundation, which supports the GOP, found Franken trailing Grassley by about 8 points. The Republican had the backing of just over half (51.6 percent) of likely Iowan voters compared to the Democrat's 43.4 percent. The poll was carried out from July 13 to July 14 and included 600 respondents with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.95 percent.

Another non-partisan poll from July by Selzer & Co. for the Des Moines Register and MediaCom showed similar results. Franken trailed Grassley by the same margin, but the levels of support were 39 percent for Franken and 47 percent for Grassley. The survey included 597 likely Iowan voters and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Although the poll showed a substantial lead for Grassley, the Des Moines Register pointed out that it represented his worst polling performance in decades.

"While Grassley leads Franken, the margin is narrower than in any Iowa Poll matchup involving Grassley since he was first elected to the U.S. Senate. Grassley has not polled below 50 percent in a head-to-head contest since October 1980, before he went on to defeat incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. John Culver," the newspaper reported.

A poll conducted from June 30 to July 4 for Franken's campaign by Change Research showed a closer race, although Grassley was still ahead. The survey results had Grassley at 49 percent while Franken came in at 44 percent. It included 1,488 likely voters and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.7 percent.

In 2020, Trump carried Iowa by a little more than 8 points. He received 53.2 percent of the state's votes while President Joe Biden garnered 45 percent. Ernst, however, didn't fair quite as well as Trump, picking up just under 52 percent compared to her Democratic opponent's slightly more than 45 percent the votes.

Iowa went for former Democratic President Barack Obama in 2008 and again in 2012. The last Democrat to represent Iowa in the Senate was Tom Harkin, who served from 1985 until 2015.