Yesterday I looked at the general state of Iowa polling, noting the stability on the Democratic side and the utter chaos on the Republican side. Well, the very next day we have even more evidence of that.
The DMR/Selzer poll just showed Hillary with a rather conservative 9-point lead, but it's oft-repeated "gold standard" status in Iowa is being tested again...because a couple of new polls are showing a much bigger advantage for the frontrunner.
PPP is showing an 18-point lead, and that's not all:
On the Democratic side Hillary Clinton continues to be the clear favorite in Iowa. She’s at 52% to 34% for Bernie Sanders and 7% for Martin O’Malley. Sanders leads 47/40 with younger voters, but that’s not enough to make up for Clinton holding a 64/20 advantage with seniors. She leads by pretty similar margins of 19 points with liberals at 56/37 and 22 points with moderates at 52/30. And she also has comparable leads with both women (21 points at 55/34) and men (15 points at 49/34). Clinton’s favorability rating is 73/19 while Sanders’ comes in at 65/23.These numbers are rock-solid and about as good as it gets for a non-incumbent running in Iowa.
Or is it? Loras College is out with a poll today showing Clinton up by 32! Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton continues to hold a strong lead over Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders in the most recent Loras College Poll measuring Democratic presidential hopefuls, which was released today. Clinton topped Sanders, 58.9 percent to 27.3 percent, as the first choice to be president among the 501 likely Democratic Iowa Caucus goers surveyed Dec. 7 to 10. The poll’s margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. ...Democrats appear quite comfortable with the top two candidates in the field as a first choice or second choice candidate, according to Loras College Poll Director Christopher Budzisz.
“Say what you will about negatives Clinton may have in a general election, but right now among likely Democratic caucus voters in Iowa she does not appear to be a divisive figure,” Budzisz said in a news release.
Meanwhile, on the unenviable other side...Trump leads:
xOur new Iowa poll: Trump 28, Cruz 25, Rubio 14, Carson 10, Bush 7. No one else over 3%: https://t.co/17TRRN0TKo
— PublicPolicyPolling (@ppppolls) December 15, 2015Or does he?
In the Loras poll, Cruz topped Trump, 29.7 percent to 23.4 percent, as the first choice to be president among the 499 likely Republican Iowa Caucus participants surveyed Dec. 7 to 10.But really it doesn't matter much who is leading at the moment....because if either Trump or Cruz wins Iowa, it's a miserable no-win scenario for the Republicans Party.
And one of them will win. UPDATE: Throw another one onto the pile. Quinnipiac also has Clinton up 51-40 over Sanders in Iowa today. This a slight improvement from her 9-point lead in their late November poll, and a huge improvement from their 41-40 Sanders lead from September (still the only phone poll to ever show him ahead there). . Originally posted at Hillary HQ