Donald Trump leads Hillary Clinton among independent voters, 39 percent to 35 percent. | Getty Iowa poll: Trump, Clinton running close

Though he narrowly lost the Republican caucuses in Iowa, Donald Trump holds a slight lead in the battleground state over Hillary Clinton, who narrowly won the state’s Democratic contest, according to the results of a Monmouth University poll out Tuesday.

The survey also found that Iowans largely have negative opinions of both major candidates, and that Trump is outperforming Clinton by double digits among voters younger than 50. The presumptive Democratic nominee has typically outpolled Trump among younger voters in most national and state polls.

Overall, 44 percent of Iowans likely to vote in the general election said they support Trump, while 42 percent support Clinton. Six percent said they will vote for Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson, while 1 percent expressed support for Green Party candidate Jill Stein, 2 percent said they would vote for someone else, and 6 percent are undecided.

Trump leads Clinton among independent voters, 39 percent to 35 percent, while 10 percent said they will vote for Johnson and 4 percent said they would vote for Stein or someone else.

Among women, Clinton leads 54 percent to 33 percent, while Trump holds a comparable lead among men of 56 percent to 29 percent.

Among voters younger than 50, Trump leads Clinton 51 percent to 32 percent, with 7 percent for Johnson and 3 percent for Stein or someone else. Voters 50 and older backed Clinton over Trump 50 percent to 38 percent, with 4 percent going for Johnson and 1 percent for Stein or another candidate.

More than four in 10 Iowa voters — 45 percent — said it is “very important” to keep Clinton from being elected president, while a slightly smaller share of 40 percent indicated the same for Trump.

As was the case with Monmouth’s survey of likely Nevada voters released Monday, voters in Iowa appeared undecided over which candidate would best help “the little guy.” Clinton leads Trump 38 percent to 30 percent on that count, while 4 percent said it describes them equally and 24 percent said neither would be likely to do so.

Asked about the investigation of Clinton’s private email server, 43 percent said the former secretary of state acted criminally, while 32 percent said she exhibited poor judgment. Another 11 percent said Clinton did nothing out of the ordinary, while 15 percent had no opinion.

On the Senate race between incumbent Republican Chuck Grassley and his Democratic challenger, former Lt. Gov. Patty Judge, the Judiciary Committee chairman leads 52 percent to 42 percent.

Grassley’s 10-point lead is smaller than his leads in past election cycles and comes as just one in four Iowa voters said they approve of Grassley’s decision to not hold hearings on the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland. A plurality of 39 percent said they disapprove of Grassley’s decision, while 36 percent said they have no opinion.

Monmouth conducted its survey via landlines and cellphones from July 8-11, surveying a random sample of 401 likely voters in Iowa. The overall margin of error is plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.

