Quinnipiac’s new swing-state poll paints a worrying picture of the 2016 general election for Iowa Democrats. If the poll is accurate, Hillary Clinton’s favorability has plummeted in recent months, and at least three Republican candidates lead Clinton and other prospective Democratic candidates head to head in Iowa.
Quinnipiac surveyed 1,236 self-identified registered Iowa voters between July 9 and 20, producing a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points. The respondents’ partisan breakdown is fairly close to that of the Iowa electorate as a whole: 29 percent Republican, 27 percent Democrat, and 38 percent no-party.
The trendlines for Clinton’s favorability in Quinnipiac’s Iowa polling are brutal. She went from 52 percent favorable/41 percent unfavorable (as measured in the 2013 and 2014 Q-polls in Iowa) to a 49/40 split in February of this year, a net negative 45/47 split in April, and a shocking 33 percent favorable/56 percent unfavorable rating among Iowa voters this month. I am skeptical that a public figure as well-known as Clinton for many years would experience such a sharp drop in popularity over a few months, though stranger things have happened in politics.
Among Quinnipiac’s Iowa respondents, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker leads Clinton by 45 percent to 37 percent. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida leads Clinton by 44 percent to 36 percent. Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush leads Clinton by 42 percent to 36 percent. I’m surprised she even does that well against them, given that only 33 percent of the poll respondents view her favorably.
Bush, Walker, and Rubio have leads of similar sizes against Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, which is strange, sinc e Biden and Sanders have somewhat better favorability numbers than Clinton among the respondents.
Public Policy Polling’s May 2015 Iowa survey found Clinton in net negative territory (41 percent favorable/52 percent unfavorable) but leading every Republican they tested against her in the sample. Selzer & Co’s October 2014 Iowa poll for the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg News found Clinton’s favorable/unfavorable numbers at 47/49, though Clinton led all the Republicans tested in that survey except for Mitt Romney, whom she trailed by just 1 point.
Quinnipiac’s latest poll shows Clinton trailing Bush, Rubio, and Walker in Colorado and Virginia as well as in Iowa. The “good news” for Democrats nationally is that thanks to the “Big Blue Wall,” Clinton has paths to 270 electoral votes even if she loses Iowa, Colorado, and Virginia. (For instance, she could win the states John Kerry won in 2004 plus Ohio and either Nevada or New Mexico, or the Kerry states plus Florida.) Those scenarios would be little comfort to Iowa Democrats who are looking for help at the top of the ticket to hold the Iowa Senate, gain ground in the Iowa House, and win back at least one Congressional district.
Any comments about the 2016 presidential campaign are welcome in this thread.
P.S.- In a field of 16 declared GOP candidates, it’s far from clear that the eventual nominee will be either Walker, Bush, or Rubio. However, establishment favorites have a good track record in Republican presidential primaries.
3 Comments
A function of timing
I share your skepticism about HRC’s sharp drop in favorability since announcing, given that her campaign to date has gotten fairly good reviews for doing things right.
Q-Polls tend to be pretty solid methodologically. But a couple of things come to mind about the results. First, since the favorability of the Dem didn’t appear to impact the match-up, this seems to be entirely a function of party ID as opposed to specific candidate — it shows Iowa moving Republican across the Board.
Second, I’m not sure I see any reasons on the ground to believe that. What I rather strongly suspect is this is an anomaly of being in an early caucus/primary state where the majority of the action for the past several months has been on the Republican side. They dominate the news cycles, they run around bashing Democrats, and their folks are more front-of-mind and their supporters are more fired up right now (this would also explain why Iowa is so different from the national numbers).
It likely has very little predictive value for the actual one-on-one race when HRC (or Bernie, or O’Malley) is spending real money while the R candidate has to reconcile ugly primary campaign positions with the needs of the General. Were I running HRC’s campaign, I might have spent a bit on positive spots to try and head off bad headline days like today — I don’t think it would have taken a ton of resources and she’ll have plenty.
zeitgeist Wed 22 Jul 9:37 PM
a previously unknown figure
is way more likely to have a sharp drop in favorability ratings following a period of negative media coverage. It’s not as if Iowans hadn’t heard all the Republican attacks on Hillary Clinton before.
Becoming an official Democratic presidential candidate makes HRC a more partisan figure than when she was mostly making news as secretary of state, so it’s not surprising the numbers would drop somewhat. Until I see other polls showing her favorability in the low 30s, though, I am inclined to think this survey may be an outlier.
Next spring, the eventual Republican nominee will still be fending off super-PAC attacks on behalf of candidates who have no realistic chance anymore, but have plenty of money behind them. That’s something new in American presidential politics. Will be interesting to see how it affects the race once the Democratic nomination has been settled (probably by March/April).
desmoinesdem Wed 22 Jul 9:56 PM
One Poll
Sam Wang on the reason behind poll aggregation:
https://twitter.com/samwangphd…
tom-fisher Wed 22 Jul 9:39 PM