IOWA—DM Register/Bloomberg: Clinton 45, Sanders 42, O’Malley 3
IOWA—DM Register/Bloomberg: Trump 28, Cruz 23, Rubio 15, Carson 10, Bush 2, Paul 5, Christie 3, Kasich 2, Huckabee 2, Fiorina 2, Santorum 2
Yesterday, the Gold Standard Iowa poll by Anne Selzer was released. As expected, it finds Clinton and Trump ahead, though they find that Trump’s lead is beatable whereas other polls showed him with a larger more insurmountable lead.
Here are some interesting points from the cross tabs and internals of the poll: “Another sign of a possible cliffhanger Monday night: Although just 9% of likely GOP caucusgoers haven’t yet made a choice, they’re part of the 45% who could be persuaded to change their minds in the final hours.”
As has been the case all along, Sanders has a robust lead among first-time Caucus-goers, but they represent only about a third of likely participants, as compared to 60 percent when Barack Obama beat Clinton in 2008 via a huge turnout. And while Sanders’s base includes both men and women under 30, Clinton has a better than 2-to-1 lead among seniors — still the most likely voters to show up Monday night — and desire for a woman to become president seems more intense than a passion for the kind of political revolution Sanders promises.
Among Republicans, the Iowa Poll confirms the conventional wisdom that Donald Trump has overtaken Ted Cruz; he leads Cruz 28 to 23 percent, reversing a 25 to 22 percent Cruz lead in the last Selzer poll. But the bit of conventional wisdom passionately hoped for by many establishment Republicans — a Marco Rubio surge past Cruz into second place — just ain’t happening. He’s at 15 percent, with no particular signs of momentum, unless you believe Selzer missed some sort of very late, debate-driven change (this poll was still in the field yesterday, though).
Booman says we really need to stop and savor this complete collapse of the House of Bush as shown by the poll.
Looking through the final Des Moines Register polling numbers, I’m struck first of all by how stunningly unsuccessful Jeb Bush has been in winning support. He’s polling at 2%, which means that one out of every fifty people say that they intend to caucus for him. He’s the second choice of 4% (or one in every twenty-five respondents). His 53% unfavorable rating is higher than anyone else polled, including Sarah Palin. His net favorable rating is minus 12%, which is only surpassed by Palin’s minus 13% rating.
When asked how enthusiastic they would be to vote for a candidate in the general, only John Kasich has a lower rating, and that’s because Kasich appears to be largely unknown in the Hawkeye state after having focused all his efforts on winning in New Hampshire.
Gallup finds that Donald Trump, with an unfavorable rating of 60%, would be the most unpopular candidate to be nominated from either of the two major parties going back to the 1992 election.
Los Angeles Times asks if Bernie Sanders is like Obama or Howard Dean: “Targeting technologies pioneered by Obama’s campaign have made it possible for outsider candidates like Sanders to turn out Iowans who a decade ago might have showed up at a rally and then faded away before the caucuses. Now, computers can quickly link them up with a caucus coach who can walk them through the bewildering voting process and even make sure they have a ride on election night.”
“But ultimately, much of the work of sealing a commitment from voters happens through human contact. And to avoid the disappointment fellow Vermonter Howard Dean endured in the 2004 caucuses, when he failed to leverage similar insurgent momentum, the Sanders campaign has been rushing to build the infrastructure to capture enthusiasm and turn it into votes.”
But by Sanders’ own admission, his campaign will not see a turnout like Obama achieved in 2008. Further, his organization has less offices open than Obama did. He will not fail as spectacularly as Dean did, coming in third with 18% behind Kerry with 38% and Edwards with 32%. But he will not win like Obama did.
The New York Times endorses Hillary Clinton and John Kasich for their respective party’s nominations.
Politico: “Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders’ campaigns have agreed in principle to attend four more debates, starting with the proposed New Hampshire event next week, a Clinton campaign aide confirmed Saturday — but an exchange of statements on Saturday called the Feb. 4 date into question.”
“Both campaigns, and Martin O’Malley’s, spent Friday negotiating with the DNC, which has not publicly weighed in on the campaigns’ requests to add the four events — one in February, one in March, one in April, and one in May — since Sanders proposed it this week. The final details are still being ironed out, and no dates or locations have been solidified.”
I mean seriously, they're going to have to use one of those pocket Bibles to swear him in. #ShrimpFingers pic.twitter.com/jQtxO5KtrI
— Andrew Stiles (@AndrewStilesUSA) January 26, 2016
Donald Trump has small hands and small fingers. And you know what that means. And that makes all his other behavior make sense. Overcompensation to the extreme.
Charlie Cook thinks a contested convention is getting more and more likley: “At this point, my gut suggests that by the time we get deep into the process, Trump will appear to have the support of the populist, less ideological third of the GOP, roughly where he is now; Cruz will have consolidated conservatives and roughly one third of the party; a conventional candidate (Bush, Christie, Kasich, or Rubio) will be pulling about a quarter, with the remaining fifth up in the air. That spells a contested convention.”
Sen. Ted Cruz’s “leading Iowa supporters say his get-out-the-vote operation is the best they have seen for a presidential campaign here. He had better hope they are right,” the New York Times reports.
“With his monthlong lead in the polls erased, Mr. Cruz’s hopes for pulling out a much-needed victory over Donald J. Trump in the Iowa caucuses on Monday now rest in the hands of thousands of campaign workers and supporters who are spending this weekend telephoning, emailing and knocking on the doors of likely caucusgoers.”
Meanwhile, experts inside and outside the GOP tell The Hill it “would be a mistake to think Trump’s organization is operating on a wing and a prayer when it comes to getting his supporters to caucus sites around Iowa on Monday night.”
How is it possible that someone [Donald Trump] with so many heresies in his past could be in a position to win more support in conservative Iowa — and have more support among GOP voters nationally — than any other GOP candidate? Maybe voters really are ignorant of his positions. Or maybe, if he does win Iowa and more, perhaps it will means that a lot of Republican voters don’t care about these things as much as they are supposed to.
Philip Klein has a good piece in which he carefully categorizes the various Republican voter groups and concludes that the persistence of Trumpism suggests the party may be far more divided than we thought. Here’s his description of what is driving Trump’s voters:
Trump supporters aren’t particularly ideological. They are frustrated because they think America is in decline economically, culturally and militarily, threatened by other nations on the world stage and by foreigners here at home. They don’t care about economic arguments in favor of free trade or constitutional arguments for executive restraint. They don’t bat an eye when Trump touts the importance of government seizures of private property for non-public use or the virtues of single-payer healthcare….
Trump supporters would be fine with more government spending, on, say, infrastructure, haven’t particularly paid much attention to fights about the chairmanship of congressional committees, and would probably be fine doubling corporate Export-Import bank subsidies if Trump told them it would help crush China.
As the story goes, Donald Trump could win a general election because his political appeal extends beyond traditional Republican voting blocs. He would attract certain types of Democrats, we’re told, and he’d turn out large numbers of low-propensity voterswho’ve become totally disenchanted with the system. There is some truth to each of those claims, and the GOP would be wise to glean some lessons from the rise of Trumpism. The problem with this electoral calculus, however, is that even if Trump peels off discrete slivers of Democrats and manages to bring some significant mass of new voters into the fray, the math still doesn’t add up. His favorability rating among Democrats — and more importantly, among independents — is horrific.
Not to mention that Trump will spark high turnout among Democrats and minorities, motivated to the polls to vote against him, not for him.
First Read asks if Trump can get out the vote: “Just look at our new NBC/WSJ/Marist poll: Donald Trump now has a seven-point lead over Ted Cruz among likely caucus-goers, 32%-25%, with Marco Rubio at 18%.”
“It’s a closer race among past Iowa participants, Trump 29% and Cruz 25%. But among new participants, Trump has a 14-point advantage, 39%-25% — meaning a larger, newer turnout benefits Trump, while a smaller, older turnout helps Cruz. It’s that simple.”
“Are new participants going to flock to the caucus sites on Monday? So far, we’re not seeing it, though participants have until the night of the contest (Feb. 1) to register.”