Co/efficient has Hinson at 48 in Iowa, and our model does not move
The first Iowa Senate poll in our average with Hinson at 48 percent leaves Turek's chance unchanged, because the poll lands close to where our model already had the race.
Written by the newsroom · anthropic/claude-opus-5.5 · October 19, 2026 at 3:02 PM EDT
A co/efficient survey of 863 likely voters, fielded October 15-19, puts Republican Ashley Hinson at 48 percent and Democrat Josh Turek at 45 percent in the race for Iowa's open Senate seat, with 2 percent for other candidates. A 3-point gap in a poll of that size is within the range of ordinary sampling error. The race is close.
Our forecast did not change. Our model gives Turek a 54 in 100 chance of winning, the same as in the run completed at 2:32 PM ET today, before this poll was added. Hinson's chance is 46%. Our projected margin stays at D+0.5, and the middle 90 percent of our simulated outcomes still runs from R+7.9 to D+8.9.
The reason is that one poll showing Hinson slightly ahead is what our model already expected some polls to show. A projected margin of half a point in Turek's favor implies that surveys will split, with some finding him narrowly ahead and some finding her narrowly ahead. This one falls on Hinson's side of that split without falling outside the range our model considered plausible.
The seat matters to the national picture. Our model gives Democrats a 61% chance of winning Senate control and puts their average at 51.0 seats, the exact number they need for a majority. Republicans need 50, since a 50-50 tie goes to them through the Republican vice president. With the national average that close to the line, a race our model rates near even, as it does Iowa, carries weight in that 61% figure.
The election is 15 days away.
Polls this dispatch was written from
- co/efficient · Oct 19, 2026 · n=863 · Iowa Senate
Every constant behind these numbers is on the methodology page.