New polling in Iowa's 1st Congressional District points to something unusual: a genuinely open race, and an electorate that says it's ready to look past party labels.
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Here's the number that should reframe how everyone thinks about Iowa's 1st District this cycle: neither major party is pulling even a third of the vote.
When voters were asked how they'd vote if the election were held today, the Democratic candidate drew 32% and the Republican candidate 28%. That's it. In a district often described in red-or-blue shorthand, more than a third of voters — roughly 38% — aren't committed to either major party right now. They're either undecided or already looking at an independent.
For a race that hasn't fully begun, that's an enormous block of available votes sitting in the middle of the field. No one owns this district. It's there to be won.
The single largest group in the poll isn't a party at all — it's the undecideds. Nearly 28% of voters say they simply haven't settled on a choice. Add the voters already leaning toward an independent, and you have a plurality of the district that the two parties have not locked down.
That matters because campaigns are usually a fight over a thin sliver of persuadable voters. In Iowa's First, the persuadable pool isn't a sliver. It's the biggest thing on the board.
What do those uncommitted voters actually want? The poll suggests they're tired of the trench warfare.
Two findings stand out:
These aren't fringe sentiments. They're the prevailing mood of the district. Only a small hardened core — fewer than 4% — say party trumps everything no matter what. The overwhelming majority are telling pollsters, in effect: show me the candidate, not the jersey.
This is where the race gets interesting. The independent in the contest, Michael Bridgford, is already pulling just over 10% on the ballot test.
Double digits, this early, is notable on its own. It becomes remarkable when you look at how few voters have any idea who he is: only 19% of voters say they've even heard of him. Seven in ten have never encountered his name.
Sit with that for a second. A candidate with single-digit name recognition is polling in double digits. He isn't being rejected by the electorate — most of the electorate hasn't met him yet. The 10% he's drawing is coming from the small fraction of voters who already know he exists.
That's a very different situation from a candidate who's well known and stuck. It suggests the ceiling here is defined by awareness, not by appeal — and awareness is the one thing a campaign can actually build.
The independent's early support also refuses to sort neatly by party. Among the voters backing him today, 45% cast a ballot for Trump in 2024 and 29% voted for Harris. He's pulling from both directions at once — exactly the cross-partisan profile you'd expect in a district where voters keep saying positions matter more than party.
The openness runs across age groups, too. Voters of every age express real willingness to consider an independent, with the strongest receptivity among younger voters.
Strip away the spin and the poll tells a simple story. Iowa's 1st District is not locked up by anyone. A third of voters are undecided, two-thirds are open to an independent who'll work across the aisle, and the independent already in the race is posting double digits before most voters have learned his name.
Races like this are usually decided by who introduces themselves first and most clearly. On the evidence here, the voters of Iowa's First are waiting to be asked.
Methodology: Findings are drawn from a survey of 940 registered voters in Iowa's 1st Congressional District, conducted in late May 2026. As with any single survey, results represent a snapshot of opinion at one moment and are subject to normal sampling variation; subgroup figures are based on smaller samples and should be read as directional.