If an objective poll comes out with a R +3 or even an R +4 lead, you could at least say "well maybe it's an outlier", or fine some fault wit the crosstabs. But if a Democratic internal has it at a tie, you know the race is lost, because that is literally the best poll they could come up with and it still wasn't enough.
I don't see why campaigns bother with internals anymore.
Why do we assume that campaigns blatantly make up poll results, but only to a specific point? As if they're totally OK fabricated a poll that's off by 3, but they have too much honor and dignity to release an internal off by 5. That doesn't make sense to me.
And, would it really help Braley in any material to pretend that he's leading by one or two or three? In terms of rallying his base and getting them to volunteer, I don't think that makes a difference. Whatever the actual result, it's going to be what it's going to be. Whether or not an accurate poll has come out reflecting that is not at all connected to the eventual result. In other words, candidates don't win because they're leading in polls, they lead in polls because more people are planning to vote for them.
In any case, it does seem like there's a divergent picture with the polling in Iowa. Maybe I'm a partisan hack and I probably am, but I don't believe these polls with Ernst up 4. Rather, I'm going to put a lot of stock in what the DMR poll says.
