Talk Elections

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2016/06/16/poll-shows-clinton-grassley-leading-iowa/85947420/

Clinton 44
Trump 41
Undecided 15

Trump favorable 33/64
Clinton favorable 42/55

But muh whites!

Honestly, I always felt this would be the most likely Midwestern state to swing hard toward Trump.

Looks like a battleground as it usually is.

I expect that this gap will increase once ads featuring Trump shouting "How stupid are the people of Iowa?" start airing

Trump likely will not rise very much from that number between now and November. That is close to his ceiling.

McCain in 2008 (the GOP's lowest year in our generation) still managed 44%, yet you feel Trump won't get 42% in 2016, a year in which the economy is poor, terrorism is threatening, and the Democrats hold the White House?

Good point. That is some very good material for Clinton for Iowa specifically. Her campaign and supporting super pacs should make slightly edited versions of all of their ads to include that clip in every single Clinton ad that runs in Iowa.

In Iowa? Their unemployment rate is low compared to the nation at 3.9%.

And the incumbent party has positive favorable ratings.

Their last national poll was Clinton +4 and all their state polls are consistent with that.

Well, thank you PPP for actually polling Iowa.

Unemployment rate isn't the only metric. Plus, in 2008 their unemployment rate was 5.0 when the national average was nearly 7.0; yet Iowa still swung heavily towards Obama. Sometimes people will vote according to the welfare of the nation, not the welfare of their state.

What we need next is a poll of CO (none since Feb)

Obama approval is soaring. Your points are invalid.

Al Gore distanced himself from Clinton. Do you really think Hillary will do the same to Obama?

That's because Gore decided to distance himself from Clinton. In case you missed it, Hillary is doing the opposite with Obama.

Plus of course the level of partisanship is much higher today and that benefits Democrats.

Actually, relative to the nation as a whole, it didn't swing that much at all. It was 1.7% more Democratic in 2004, and 2.3% more Democratic in 2008.

Anyway, it's nice to finally see an Iowa poll. It's not a great fit for either candidate, so I expect a competitive race.

By what comprehensive metric is the economy poor in Iowa?

Lol when I seen a Iowa poll I thought"TN Volunteer is gonna love this"

IA was more Republican than the nation in 2000.

Did anyone allege that the economy is poor in Iowa?

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-06-15/national-poll-part-2

a majority, 55 percent, say they're personally better off than at the start of 2009, when President Barack Obama took office. That's the highest level for that metric since the poll first asked the question in December 2010.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-economy-idUSKCN0Z01I7

U.S. retail sales point to strong domestic demand

This is actually better for Trump than I'd expect with his current national numbers although you can probably chalk that up to both parties having a pretty high floor in Iowa than anything to do with Trump.

PPP is inflating Trumps numbers in order to discredit the #NeverTrump movement.  They will start showing big margins once the convention is over.  Don't believe it!

This is ridiculous.

Not at all.  They're a partisan polling outfit, so naturally they're doing whatever they can to help Trump win the nomination.

At least Iowa is now fixed on the Atlas map. Now we just need real polls in Kentucky, Mississippi, and Minnesota.

No. They really are not. PPP strives for accuracy. It's not like these numbers are not much off of the 2012 final numbers within the MOE. If the race is about C+3-5% at this point, that's about where they should be stateside. Especially since most state polling is LV, but national polling is RV.

That's precisely why these numbers are ridiculous.  This is not a 2012 election, it's 1932.

Very good for Hillary.

Except outside of the Reuters and Bloomberg polls, both of which have their own set of flaws, there's nothing at this point backing up your 1932 assessment. Most of the polling right now is in the 3-6 point range nationally, not much different than 2012 outcome.

Personalities aside, to me this is your typical open seat election, which will end up in the same R+1 to D+7 range in voter turnout. With how polarized this country is, it's just a matter of who turns out more people.

If it ends up D+7, Hillary wins. If the electorate tilts to around D+3 it starts favoring Trump.

For every Democrat that hates Trump, there's a Republican that despises Hillary!

Up to this point, Romney did better than Trump in the polls, though. I mean Hillary even opened up a 10+ point RCP average for almost a month and a half not that long ago.

These races are not really the same. In the polls, Hillary is doing notably better than Obama was in 2012 (so far)


http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/us/general_election_romney_vs_obama-1171.html

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton-5491.html

That may be true, but just because Trump is underperforming Romney doesn't mean that it is going to remain that way. There still is a long way to go in this cycle.

Note that I am NOT saying that it will either be a landslide or a close race on either side. Simply, the numbers are what the numbers are at this point. I'd expect about this result in IA, etc.

My confirmation of that is where Hillary! is spending her money.

No sex scandal.

I want to see more polls, but this seems about right. I think people are over estimating Iowa swinging republican--not to say it's not happening, I just think 2014 was more of an exception rather than the norm. I predict the race remaining close since neither candidate is well liked here. If this had been Clinton vs. any other republican I could easily see the state flipping. I think she'll pull it off here, but perhaps just barely.

The county map will be the typical east/west divide, maybe even more pronounced this year. If only IA-4 could become part of Nebraska...

Iowa is about D+1. Gore barely won the state in 2000; Kerry barely lost it in 2004.  It was the tipping-point state in 2008.

Either Iowa or Virginia by 3 for her suggests that Hillary Clinton has somewhere between 275 (IA) and 300 (VA) electoral votes. 

Weren't you part of the bull****, "PPP is in the tank for $hillary" crowd, or was this an early persona?

I still believe they were adjusting their primary polls in her favor before Iowa, but after that they stopped for some reason.

Yeah, so you can't complain about poll manipulation claims. I think PPP's problem was their reliance on landlines and didn't model accordingly.

As I said above, Iowa is a state where it's virtually impossible for either party to get under 40% in a presidential election. Trump's numbers don't look inflated at all.

Yeah, and that is understating it. Iowa was always going to be close.