Donald Trump leads Hillary Clinton by 43 percent to 39 percent in the new Iowa poll by Selzer & Co for the Des Moines Register. It’s the first Selzer poll here since before the June 7 primary elections, and its findings are in line with other recent statewide surveys showing Trump ahead. Some 6 percent of respondents favored Libertarian Gary Johnson and 2 percent Green Party candidate Jill Stein.

This poll was in the field from October 3-6, before Friday’s explosive news that Trump was videotaped in 2005 bragging to an entertainment reporter about how he liked to assault women he found attractive (“I just start kissing them. […] I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. […] Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything”). Jason Noble’s write-up notes that Trump’s attitude toward women was already among the biggest concerns for Iowa voters about the GOP nominee.

I enclose below excerpts from that story and from others about the latest Trump uproar. A separate post is in progress about the hole Iowa Republican leaders have dug for themselves by fully embracing Trump’s candidacy. All of our state’s top GOP elected officials are standing behind their party’s nominee, even as they condemn his comments in the 2005 video.

At tonight’s Reagan dinner in Des Moines, Iowa GOP chair Jeff Kaufmann said the country has “two flawed candidates” but confirmed he will vote for Trump. Republican National Committeeman Steve Scheffler offered a prayer expressing hope that people will understand “elections are not always about perfection.” U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley didn’t mention Trump in his speech, which framed the election as a battle over the direction of the Supreme Court for the next 40 years. Senator Joni Ernst bashed Clinton’s character while not discussing Trump, whom she praised at the Republican National Convention and invited to headline her biggest event of the year. Governor Terry Branstad, whose son Eric is Trump’s campaign manager in Iowa, told the Reagan dinner crowd, “We need to elect Donald Trump and Mike Pence to make America great again!”

This is an open thread: all topics welcome. UPDATE: Radio Iowa’s O.Kay Henderson posted the audio from most of the Reagan dinner speeches. The featured guest speaker, Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas,

said Trump has let the GOP down “again.”

“The words on that tape were demeaning and they were shameful,” Cotton said and, as he continued, one woman yelled “Impeach Hillary” and others grew agitated. “Donald Trump doesn’t have much of a choice at this point. Tomorrow night at that debate, he needs to throw himself on the mercy of the American people. He needs to take full responsibility for his words and his actions and he needs to beg for their forgiveness and he needs to pledge that he’s going to finally change his ways.”

If Trump will not act contrite, Cotton said Trump needs to consider stepping aside so an “elder statesman” may run in his place. That declaration was initially greeted with silence, then many in the crowd applauded.

For the first time in his six re-election campaigns, U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley is on the air with a second commercial criticizing his Democratic challenger.

And in a move without precedent for a major-party candidate in Iowa, Grassley backed out of participating in a scheduled debate on Iowa Public Television, which would have been broadcast statewide.

Rescinding his acceptance of Iowa Public TV’s invitation looks like a risk-averse strategy. After several polls during the summer found Grassley 9 or 10 points ahead of former Lieutenant Governor Patty Judge, the last four public surveys showed double-digit leads for Grassley: 55 percent to 43 percent according to Quinnipiac, 56-39 according to Monmouth, 54-37 according to Loras College, and 50-37 according to RABA Research.

On the other hand, confident incumbents typically stay positive in their own tv ads, as Grassley has done in every previous re-election campaign.

Follow me after the the jump for the video and transcript of Grassley’s latest negative tv ad, along with statements from both campaigns and Iowa Public Television regarding the senator’s change of heart about the debate.

Who could have predicted that after his poor performance in Monday night’s debate, Donald Trump would spend most of the past week re-litigating his fat-shaming of former Miss Universe Alicia Machado, culminating in an overnight tweet-storm that Hillary Clinton described as “unhinged, even for Trump”?

Trump’s “aggressive bullying” is textbook behavior for a narcissist–so much that many survivors of domestic violence and emotional abuse found his behavior during the first debate triggering their traumatic memories. Even more disturbing: look how easily Trump fell for the “trap” Clinton set during the debate, validating the narrative that he “lacks the temperament and emotional stability to be president.” Foreign adversaries would have a field day manipulating this guy.

No wonder the Arizona Republic, which had never supported a Democrat for president since its creation in 1890, endorsed Clinton this week, saying Trump is “not conservative” and “not qualified.”

Today’s New York Times features tax documents showing Trump declared a $916 million loss in 1995, which “would have been large enough to wipe out more than $50 million a year in taxable income over 18 years.” The Trump campaign did not deny the authenticity of what they called “illegally obtained” documents but said in a statement,

Mr. Trump is a highly-skilled businessman who has a fiduciary responsibility to his business, his family and his employees to pay no more tax than legally required. That being said, Mr. Trump has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in property taxes, sales and excise taxes, real estate taxes, city taxes, state taxes, employee taxes and federal taxes.”

Mr. Trump knows the tax code far better than anyone who has ever run for President and he is the only one that [sic] knows how to fix it.

The New York Times scoop doesn’t point to any illegal tax avoidance by Trump, but David Fahrenthold’s reporting for the Washington Post has uncovered several Trump Foundation practices that appear to violate federal and state law.

Clinton was already gaining ground in some polls before the first debate. As of September 30, she led Trump in all eleven swing-state polls that were in the field after the debate. None were from Iowa, where Trump has led the latest public surveys and is slightly favored, according to various election forecasters. I wonder whether Clinton will get a bounce here as well. I’m disappointed not to see a new Iowa poll by Selzer & Co this weekend. Usually during election years, the Des Moines Register commissions a Selzer poll to run in late September.

Speaking of public opinion, Charles Franklin of PollsandVotes.com gave me permission to post below graphs he created, comparing President Barack Obama’s second-term job approval rating with that of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

Donald Trump leads Hillary Clinton by 50 percent to 44 percent in a two-way race, and by 44 percent to 37 percent in a field including Libertarian Gary Johnson (10 percent) and Green Party candidate Jill Stein (2 percent), according to the new Quinnipiac survey of 612 likely Iowa voters. Trump has gained ground since last month’s Quinnipiac poll showing a small lead for Clinton in both the two-way and four-way races. The polling memo noted Trump’s 52 percent to 26 percent lead among men, which overcame Clinton’s 47 percent to 37 percent advantage with women. Trump also had higher levels of support among Republican respondents (86 percent) than Clinton did among Democrats (83 percent).

Nuggets from the cross-tabs:

• Independents split 38 percent Trump, 33 percent Clinton, 19 percent Johnson, and 4 percent Stein in a four-way race. Against Clinton alone, Trump led 47 percent to 41 percent among independent respondents.

• As expected, Trump has a big lead among non-college-educated whites: 55 percent to 41 percent in a two-way, 48 percent to 33 percent in a larger field.

• Surprisingly, Trump leads among whites with a college degree (49 percent to 44 percent)

• By self-reported party identification, 33 percent of this poll’s respondents were Republicans, 30 percent Democrats, 33 percent independents, and 5 percent other/don’t know. That party breakdown better reflects the 2012 general electorate in Iowa than did last week’s Monmouth poll.

According to Quinnipiac, its poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points–though that number refers to only one of many potential sources of error in opinion polls. I am seeking further details on Quinnipiac’s likely voter screen, which wasn’t explained in the note on methodology. Nate Cohn’s latest post at the New York Times Upshot blog explained how four different approaches to separating “likely voters” from other poll respondents produced four different results from the same set of interviews with North Carolina voters.

Several forecasters have recently upgraded Donald Trump’s chances of winning Iowa’s six electoral votes. Only a month ago, Larry Sabato’s “Crystal Ball” and FiveThirtyEight.com both considered Iowa a “lean Democratic” state. Sabato now sees Iowa leaning Republican, while FiveThirtyEight gives Trump about a two-thirds chance of winning Iowa in different scenarios.

This week, both The Fix at the Washington Post and NPR’s Domenico Montanaro moved Iowa from toss-up to lean Republican.

Forecasters that still see Iowa as a toss-up include the Cook Political Report and NBC News, though it’s been a couple of weeks since NBC updated their battleground map. The New York Times Upshot puts a 53 percent probability on Trump winning here.

The latest Rothenberg & Gonzales Political Report also shifted its Iowa rating in Republicans’ favor, though that forecast still sees our state as “toss-up/tilt DEM.”

Why isn’t Hillary Clinton doing better in a state Barack Obama carried twice?

The new RABA Research poll for Simpson College found U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley leading Democratic challenger Patty Judge by 50 percent to 37 percent. Full results are here, and I’ve enclosed the cross-tabs on the Senate results after the jump. Bleeding Heartland covered key findings from Simpson/RABA on the presidential race here.

Adding to the consensus that Iowa’s six electoral votes could go either way, a new poll by RABA Research for Simpson College shows Donald Trump leading Hillary Clinton by 43 percent to 42 percent in a two-way race or by 40 percent to 39 percent in a field including Libertarian Gary Johnson (10 percent) and Green Party candidate Jill Stein (3 percent). The remaining 8 percent of respondents were undecided.

Full poll results are here; I enclose below the page containing the cross-tabs.

Clinton is winning women by 43 percent to 37 percent in a four-way race and by 46-38 against Trump alone. Trump is winning men by 44-34 when Johnson and Stein are included and by 48-38 against Clinton alone. Among the 40 percent of respondents who identified as evangelicals, just 56 percent back Trump in a four-way race and 57 percent in a two-way race.

Clinton leads among respondents who have a college degree, but she is not winning that group by enough to compensate for Trump’s advantage among non-college-educated voters. The latest census data indicate that about 26 percent of Iowans at least 25 years old have a bachelor’s degree or post-graduate education.

Like other recent polls, RABA’s survey suggests that third-party candidates are drawing roughly equally from voters who would otherwise lean toward the Democratic or Republican nominees. Johnson remains on track to far exceed any previous Libertarian candidate’s showing in Iowa. This morning FiveThirtyEight.com’s Harry Enten examined Clinton’s underperformance with young millennials (18-25), who are more likely than older voters to support third-party candidates.

Any comments about the presidential race are welcome in this thread. Trump’s campaign just started running television commercials in Iowa this month. Scroll down to see the video and transcript of the latest spot, a rapid response to the weekend’s news that Clinton had referred to the GOP nominee’s supporters as “a basket of deplorables.” Charles Blow wrote the best take I’ve seen on that gaffe.

Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton leads Republican Donald Trump by 45 percent to 43 percent in a two-way race, and U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley leads Democratic challenger Patty Judge by 49 percent to 43 percent, according to a Public Policy Polling survey of 827 “likely voters” in Iowa on August 30 and 31. PPP conducted the poll on behalf of We Need Nine, which advocates for filling the U.S. Supreme Court vacancy as a project of the Constitutional Responsibility Project. (That advocacy group has spent $31,273 so far against Grassley.)

PPP did not include minor-party presidential candidates in its ballot test, and at this writing no cross-tabs are available to shed light on Clinton’s narrow lead over Trump. The main purpose of the survey was to gauge support for Grassley and Iowa voters’ opinions on the Supreme Court vacancy.

For those wondering about priming effects–that is, whether the pollster “primed” respondents to evaluate Grassley on this issue in order to reduce his lead over Judge–PPP asked respondents about the Senate race before the series of questions about judicial confirmations. It’s worth noting that PPP did some internal polling for Judge’s campaign before the Democratic primary in June.

Buzzfeed’s Chris Geidner was first to report on this survey. I enclose below excerpts from PPP’s polling memo and other findings from the survey.

Libertarian presidential candidate and former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson made his first Iowa campaign stop this year over the holiday weekend. His September 3 rally in Des Moines attracted hundreds of people, making it possibly the largest Libertarian event in Iowa history. You can watch his full speech at C-SPAN or Caffeinated Thoughts.

Johnson will qualify for the ballot in all 50 states and is consistently polling far better than the Green Party’s Jill Stein, the only other minor-party candidate routinely included in public opinion surveys. I continue to hear the Libertarian’s radio ads on various Des Moines-based stations and have seen pro-Johnson television commercials by the Purple PAC on some cable networks.

The four most recent Iowa polls measured Johnson’s support at 8 percent (Emerson College), 12 percent (Quinnipiac), 6 percent (Suffolk), and 12 percent (Marist). Polls have historically overstated support for third-party candidates. Nevertheless, if the competition between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump remains very close here, even a 2-3 percent showing for Johnson could determine who wins Iowa’s six electoral votes.

Though I wasn’t able to attend Saturday’s rally, listening to Johnson’s stump speech reinforced my view that he is on track to outperform all previous Libertarian presidential candidates in Iowa by a considerable margin.

Happy Labor Day, Bleeding Heartland readers! If you are enjoying a three-day weekend, thank the labor activists from past generations who made it possible. In fact, go ahead and thank the organized labor movement for every weekend off.

The Iowa Policy Project’s latest report on the Cost of Living in Iowa found that “Nearly 114,000 Iowa families”–close to 19 percent of the state’s working households–“do not earn enough to provide for a basic standard of living without public supports, despite one or more full-time wage earners in the family.” Part 1 estimates how much a family needs to get by in Iowa, taking into account expenses for “rent, utilities, food prepared at home, child care, health care, transportation, clothing and other household necessities,” but not “savings, loan payments, education expenses, any entertainment or vacation, social or recreational travel, or meals outside the home.” Part 2 explores how many Iowa families aren’t earning enough to cover essentials, and shows that “rural regions have substantially higher shares of working families with incomes below self-sufficiency.”

For political junkies, Labor Day kicks off the most intense phase of the general election campaign. Candidates at all levels can use help identifying supporters and getting them signed up to vote early. Direct voter contacts are particularly important for state legislative races. I highly recommend Laura Hubka’s 15 tips for volunteers knocking on doors. Two years ago, I posted my own canvassing dos and don’ts.

One of my funniest door-knocking experiences happened on this day last year. I was canvassing in Beaverdale for Des Moines school board candidate Heather Anderson. Normally I would not be out on a holiday, but the school board election was scheduled for September 8, the day after Labor Day. One house on my walk list already had a Heather Anderson sign in the yard. I decided to knock anyway, in case the supporter needed extra literature to give to friends and neighbors, or a reminder about the polling place location and opening hours. During our conversation, the voter said, “You know who else is for Heather? Bleeding Heartland. She’s on our side.” Yeah, I heard that…

Hillary Clinton is scheduled to appear at the Quad Cities Labor picnic later today. I’ll update later with a few links. I enclose below a video her campaign released this week featuring Ruline Steininger, a 103-year-old supporter in Des Moines. Echoing what I’ve heard from many women including former Lieutenant Governor Patty Judge and my mother-in-law, Steininger commented that when she was in high school, the only career options were to become a teacher or a nurse. She views Clinton as “more prepared” than anyone has ever been for the presidency, and also thinks her election would let “little girls know that you can be anything you want to be in this country. People won’t have to wonder whether they’re going to be a school teacher or a nurse. The sky’s the limit now. You can be president.”

I only knew one of my grandparents well. Although I didn’t get many chances to talk politics with my grandmother, I’m confident that if she were still alive, she also would be voting for Clinton. Having been active in the Sioux City Maternal Women’s Health League (later a founding organization in Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa) during the 1940s, she probably would not need to hear more than “defund Planned Parenthood” to turn her off voting for any Republican.

Lisa Desjardins and Daniel Bush reported for National Public Radio this week on the Donald Trump campaign’s “jaw-dropping gap in the ground game.” Clinton has “more than three times the number” of field offices in battleground states. In Iowa, Democrats have at least 25 “coordinated campaign” offices open around the state, possibly more by now. Trump and the Republican Party of Iowa have nine offices open, according to NPR’s data.

Speaking of jaw-dropping: Trump’s volunteers, including those participating online, are being asked to sign an absurdly broad and in some places illegal “non disclosure form.” Among other things, the volunteer must promise not to “demean or disparage” the Trump campaign or any member of Trump’s family or any Trump business, “during the time of your service and at all times thereafter.” Attorneys tell me this document probably would not be enforceable because of legal flaws such as lack of consideration. The illegal part: requiring volunteers to promise that none of their employees will volunteer for Clinton.

Thanks to all the readers whose accounts informed Thursday’s post on Republican message-testing in key Iowa House races. Democratic State Representative Todd Prichard posted on Facebook that his wife was a respondent on one of these calls. Good news: she’s still voting for him, even after hearing all the awful things he supposedly did. I am seeking details about similar telephone surveys that may be ongoing in battleground Iowa Senate districts. My e-mail address is near the lower right corner of this screen.

The campaigns of GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump and U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley were eager to spread the word on Friday about the new Emerson College Iowa poll. Trump led Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton by 44 percent to 39 percent among Iowans sampled on August 31 and September 1, with Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson gaining 8 percent and the Green Party’s Jill Stein 1 percent. Grassley led Democratic challenger Patty Judge by 51 percent to 40 percent in the same poll.

Buried at the bottom of the polling memo and not mentioned in most of the related media coverage: Emerson sampled its 600 Iowa respondents on landlines only.

Republicans are testing potentially damaging messages about Iowa House Democratic candidates, along with statements that might increase support for GOP candidates in battleground legislative districts. After listening to several recordings of these telephone polls and hearing accounts from other respondents, I have three big takeaways:

• Republicans are seeking ways to insulate themselves from voter anger over inadequate education funding and the Branstad administration’s botched Medicaid privatization;
• The time-honored GOP strategy of distorting obscure legislative votes is alive and well;
• The Iowa Democratic Party’s platform plank on legalizing all drugs may be used against candidates across the state.

Read on for much more about these surveys.

Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Patty Judge took the fight to 36-year Senator Chuck Grassley in her campaign’s first two general election television commercials, launched on Tuesday. Both 30-second spots assert that Grassley has “changed” during his long tenure in Washington. One spot features Judge delivering the message alongside a cardboard cutout of the incumbent. A string of “ordinary Iowans” question the cardboard Grassley during the other ad. Scroll down for videos and transcripts.

Grassley hasn’t run any commercials since the two ads his campaign aired before the June primary, which Bleeding Heartland analyzed here and here. I’m surprised he didn’t prepare a spot to run during the Rio Olympics, after reporting more than $1.2 million in contributions during the second quarter and nearly $6 million cash on hand as of June 30. Judge’s campaign raised $347,707 during the second quarter and had only $228,292 cash on hand at the end of June.

Three of the four Iowa polls released this month showed Grassley’s support barely above 50 percent; Judge was running 9 or 10 points behind. The most recent survey, conducted by CBS/YouGov, found Grassley leading Judge by only 45 percent to 38 percent. An incumbent polling below 50 percent traditionally signals an opening for the challenger.

But contrary to KCRG’s misleading headline and write-up, a 45-38 lead is not a “statistical tie.” The margin of error of plus or minus 4 percent in CBS/YouGov’s poll means that assuming professional sampling methods, there’s a 95 percent chance that Grassley’s support is between 41 and 49 percent, and that Judge’s support is between 34 and 42 percent. In other words, Grassley is extremely likely to be ahead if CBS/YouGov’s respondents are representative of the likely voter universe. He’s just not dominating the race by the kind of margins he’s enjoyed over previous Democratic opponents.

Over the weekend, the Des Moines Register’s Jason Noble reviewed data from earlier re-election campaigns pointing to Grassley’s strong performance among no-party voters, as well as his “crossover appeal” for thousands of Iowa Democrats.

When Bleeding Heartland reviewed presidential election forecasts nearly two months ago, four projections had Iowa leaning Democratic, while five labeled our state a toss-up. Since then, Donald Trump and his running mate Mike Pence have each visited Iowa twice. Hillary Clinton and her running mate Tim Kaine have each visited Iowa once. Clinton’s campaign and allied groups including the super-PACs Priorities USA and VoteVets have spent substantial sums on television commercials here. After the Republican and Democratic national conventions, Clinton improved her standing in many nationwide and swing state polls, but Iowa polls continue to show no clear advantage for either side.

The fourth Iowa poll released this month is another snapshot of a closely contested race. CBS/YouGov surveyed 987 “likely voters” via the internet between August 17 and 19 and found Clinton and Trump tied at 40 percent, with 7 percent of respondents supporting Libertarian Gary Johnson, 2 percent backing Jill Stein of the Green Party, 4 percent “someone else,” and 7 percent not sure. The cross-tabs show Clinton leading among women by 44 percent to 38 percent and Trump leading among men by 43 percent to 36 percent. Among the CBS/YouGov respondents who identify as Democrats, Clinton leads Trump by 80 percent to 9 percent (3 percent Johnson, 1 percent Stein). Trump leads Clinton among self-identified Republicans by 76 percent to 4 percent (8 percent Johnson, 0 percent Stein) and also leads independents by 39 percent to 31 percent (10 percent Johnson, 4 percent Stein).

With relatively few Iowa voters undecided and both candidates quite well-known, the election is shaping up as a test of identifying supporters and turning them out, rather than a persuasion game. Speaking with highly engaged Iowa Democratic activists lately, I’ve heard many acknowledge Trump could carry this state, although the general feeling seems to be “I’d rather be us than them.” Early voting begins less than 40 days from now on Thursday, September 29.

Time to check in again with leading election forecasters.

Today Quinnipiac supplemented its latest poll on the presidential race in Iowa with findings about Senator Chuck Grassley’s campaign against Democratic challenger Patty Judge. Key graphs from the polling memo:

The 51 percent to 42 percent lead for Grassley is remarkably close to the 52-42 gap in last week’s polls by Suffolk University and Marist for NBC and the Wall Street Journal.

I infer that polls from earlier this summer, showing Grassley below 50 percent and leading Judge by just 7 points, slightly understated his lead. One of those polls looked like a outlier in general. Two of the surveys were conducted by Public Policy Polling, which did some work for the Judge campaign before the Democratic primary.

That’s not to say that Judge can’t make this election more competitive–only that she can’t wait around for the race to fall into her lap. She’s losing men by a lot and isn’t making up for it among women voters. She hasn’t held many public events this summer and needs to campaign more aggressively over the next two and a half months. In addition to improving her name ID, Judge has to give Iowa voters a reason to fire Grassley after so many years of public service. The obvious issue, the one she has vowed to hammer home since the day she announced her campaign, is the Senate Judiciary Committee chair’s refusal to hold confirmation hearings for Judge Merrick Garland. Iowans don’t support Grassley’s stance on the U.S. Supreme Court vacancy, but it will take more work to convince enough of them to send the senator into retirement for that reason.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee put their thumb on the scale for Judge before the Democratic primary, but national strategists have quite a few more promising pickup opportunities than Iowa at present. The DSCC won’t come in with big money here unless the polling starts to show Grassley more vulnerable than he now appears.

Yet another Iowa poll shows a close race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Quinnipiac surveyed 846 “likely voters” between August 9 and 16, producing a statistical margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points. Clinton led Trump by 47 percent to 44 percent in a two-way race, and by 41 percent to 39 percent in a field also including Libertarian Gary Johnson (12 percent) and Jill Stein of the Green Party (3 percent).

The Quinnipiac polling memo notes the large gender gap:

[Iowa] women back Clinton 56 – 38 percent, while men back Trump 51 – 37 percent. Trump leads 85 – 8 percent among Republicans. Independent voters are divided, with 45 percent for Trump and 41 percent for Clinton. Democrats back Clinton 97 – 1 percent.

Iowa voters give Clinton and Trump negative favorability ratings, 37 – 58 percent for her and 33 – 60 percent for him.

With both major-party nominees so well-known and so unpopular, and relatively few voters undecided with two and a half months to go, the key to winning Iowa will be executing an effective turnout operation, rather than a persuasion strategy.

Democrats have been dominating the “air war” this summer; Trump has yet to run any general-election television commercials, while Clinton’s campaign and allies including the super-PAC VoteVets have been running lots of tv ads during the summer Olympics. (I enclose below videos of two spots now in rotation.) Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine received lots of media coverage in Iowa’s largest markets today, headlining a morning rally in Cedar Rapids before making an unscheduled Iowa State Fair visit in the afternoon. Trump will return to Iowa for Senator Joni Ernst’s “Roast and Ride” fundraiser on August 27, which is sure to receive heavy media attention statewide.

The “ground war” will be especially important once early voting begins on September 29. More than 43 percent of the Iowans who cast ballots in the 2012 presidential election voted early, and women are more likely than men to vote before election day. Iowa Democrats registered more new voters in the final weeks of the 2012 campaign and did a better job identifying and turning out no-party voters who supported President Barack Obama.

Margins of error for subsamples are always higher than for an opinion poll as a whole, but let’s assume Trump is really ahead among Iowa no-party voters, as Quinnipiac’s poll indicates. Effective GOTV by the Democratic coordinated campaign could compensate for that problem by banking more votes from Democrats and independents already identified as Clinton supporters. (Democrats have two dozen Iowa field offices open already.) The Quinnipiac sample consisted of 28 percent self-identified Democrats, 28 percent Republicans, and 39 percent independents.

Any comments about the presidential race are welcome in this thread. Cross-tabs for the Quinnipiac poll are available here.

A poll in the field is testing some negative messages about Jim Mowrer, the Democratic challenger to Representative David Young in Iowa’s third Congressional district. Details are after the jump, based on a report from a Bleeding Heartland reader who received the call on Friday. I will update this post as needed if I get the call myself or other respondents share further details.

IA-03 is among the most competitive U.S. House races, with an even partisan voter index and an incumbent serving his first term in a district President Barack Obama carried in 2012. Early last year, the National Republican Congressional Committee put Young in its “Patriot Program” for vulnerable House members. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee added Mowrer to its “Red to Blue” program shortly after the June primary election. According to the latest figures from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office, the sixteen counties in IA-03 contain 161,156 active registered Democrats, 172,272 Republicans, and 153,533 no-party voters.

Suffolk University’s new poll of Iowa “likely voters” shows Donald Trump leading Hillary Clinton by 41 percent to 40 percent in a two-way race and by 37 percent to 36 percent in a field including Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson (6 percent) and the Green Party’s Jill Stein (3 percent). Suffolk’s news release noted that 53 percent of respondents expect Clinton to win the election, while 31 percent think Trump will win, and 16 percent were unsure. A higher share of respondents thought Trump was “honest and trustworthy” (34 percent) than said the same of Clinton (29 percent). Johnson did best in Iowa’s southwest counties, while Stein had 9 percent support among respondents between the ages of 18 and 34, a group presumably including a lot of Bernie Sanders backers.

After the jump I’ve posted a few more numbers that caught my eye from Suffolk’s full results and cross-tabs, along with excerpts from Jason Noble’s reports for the Des Moines Register this week on the likely paths to victory for Trump and Clinton in Iowa.

Suffolk found U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley ahead of Democratic challenger Patty Judge by 52 percent to 42 percent–the same margin as in the Marist poll released Tuesday. However, the Marist survey indicated a slight lead for Clinton in the presidential race. Grassley’s favorability numbers in the Suffolk poll were good for an incumbent on the ballot: 54.4 percent favorable, 31 percent unfavorable. Judge was not nearly as well known, with 32.4 percent of respondents expressing a favorable opinion and 27.8 percent an unfavorable one.

The first public poll of Iowa since the Republican and Democratic national conventions shows Hillary Clinton slightly ahead of Donald Trump by 41 percent to 37 percent. Marist surveyed 899 registered voters for NBC News and the Wall Street Journal between August 3 and 7, producing a margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 percent. In last month’s Marist poll of Iowans, Clinton led by 42 percent to 39 percent.

When the 2016 presidential race is expanded to four candidates – including Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson and the Green Party’s Jill Stein – Clinton and Trump are tied at 35 percent each in Iowa, with Johnson at 12 percent and Stein at 6 percent. (Last month in the state, Clinton and Trump were tied in the four-way horserace at 37 percent.)

Historically, third-party presidential candidates have received far fewer votes in November than their summer poll numbers would suggest. But even assuming Marist is greatly overstating support for Johnson and Stein, those candidates could set records for their respective parties in Iowa. No Libertarian presidential candidate has ever surpassed 1 percent of the vote in our state. The Green Party’s best showing in a presidential election here was roughly 2.2 percent, which Ralph Nader received in 2000.

Both major-party presidential candidates are underwater among Iowa voters on favorability. Some 36 percent of Marist’s respondents have a favorable view of Clinton, 58 percent unfavorable. Those would be terrible numbers if Trump weren’t in even worse shape at 31 percent favorable, 64 percent unfavorable in the same poll. Without seeing more detailed results, it’s hard to tell which candidate has more room to grow support. Some recent surveys have found that remaining undecided voters “lean toward being [Bernie] Sanders holdouts,” which could mean more potential growth for Clinton than for Trump. That said, I’m 100 times more confident that Clinton will win 270 electoral votes than I am of her carrying Iowa. She is generally polling better in states that are more diverse than Iowa, where more than 86 percent of residents are non-Hispanic whites.

UPDATE: Nate Cohn pointed out that Iowa is the state “where Democrats are most dependent on less [educated] white voters.” Non-college-educated whites were a big part of Barack Obama’s winning coalition here. According to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau, 26.4 percent of Iowans who are at least 25 years old have a bachelor’s degree or higher level of education.

Marist found U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley leading Democratic challenger Patty Judge by 52 percent to 42 percent. That’s a smaller lead for Grassley than he has enjoyed in most of his re-election campaigns, but better than the single-digit leads other pollsters found for the senator earlier this summer. Iowa Republicans will be encouraged to see Grassley above the 50 percent mark. The senator confirmed to Radio Iowa today that he is still supporting Trump for president, citing scheduling conflicts to explain his absence from the GOP nominee’s rallies in Davenport and Cedar Rapids on July 28 and in Des Moines on August 5. In a statement I enclose below, Judge demanded that Grassley explain “exactly what Donald Trump meant” when he said today at a North Carolina rally, “If she [Hillary Clinton] gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people — maybe there is, I don’t know” (full comments here).

In related news, Senator Joni Ernst’s office has not yet responded to my request for comment on the extraordinary public letter released yesterday by 50 former high-ranking national security officials in Republican administrations, explaining why they will not vote for Trump. Ernst has repeatedly depicted Trump as the best candidate to keep America safe, but the former security officials warned Trump “would be a dangerous President,” lacking the requisite “character, values, experience,” or “temperament,” while displaying “little understanding of America’s vital national interests” and “alarming ignorance of basic facts of contemporary international politics.”

SECOND UPDATE: Added below some other findings from the Marist poll; click here for full results.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread: all topics welcome. Here are some links that caught my eye during the past few days; excerpts from several of the articles and columns are after the jump.

Donald Trump’s advocacy for policies that serve Russian interests continue to set off alarm bells for those who are familiar with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s leadership style. In an op-ed for today’s New York Times, former CIA Director Michael Morrell explained why he is publicly endorsing a presidential candidate (Hillary Clinton) for the first time: “Donald J. Trump is not only unqualified for the job, but he may well pose a threat to our national security.”

At this writing, none of Trump’s most prominent Iowa Republican endorsers (Governor Terry Branstad, Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, Representatives Rod Blum, David Young, and Steve King) have responded to my e-mails seeking comment on Trump’s Russia connections and other worrying aspects of his candidacy. UPDATE: Clinton’s campaign is now highlighting “Trump’s bizarre relationship with Russia.” Scroll to the end of this post for more.

If weakening the NATO alliance, running down parents of a veteran who died in wartime service, and refusing to release tax returns don’t raise enough red flags, Iowa Republicans could read up on the GOP nominee’s connections with organized crime figures. Timothy L. O’Brien reviewed some evidence for Bloomberg. Two journalists who covered Trump and the casino industry for decades have discussed Trump’s mob ties in greater detail: David Cay Johnston in this article for Politico and Wayne Barrett in an interview with CNN.

Fact-checkers have found that Clinton is much more truthful than Trump, or as Nicholas Kristof put it, “Clinton is about average for a politician in dissembling, while Trump is a world champion who is pathological in his dishonesty.” Former Wall Street Journal reporter Neil Barsky had more to say here about Trump’s lies and poor results in business.

Meanwhile, large segments of the Republican base remain convinced Clinton is a liar or worse. Chants of “Lock her up” are now a staple of Trump rallies in Iowa and elsewhere. Matthew Rezab reported for the Carroll Daily Times Herald on August 2 that at last weekend’s parade to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the fire department in the small town of Arcadia (Carroll County), children were encouraged to throw water balloons at one float, featuring “a man dressed in an orange jumpsuit and Hillary Clinton mask while standing on a platform inside bars, fencing and barbed wire above a ‘Hillary For Prison’ sign tacked onto the side.”

Several national polls, including today’s release by the Washington Post and ABC News, reinforce what Dan Guild noted here a few days ago: Clinton got a larger bounce out of her party’s national convention and is well-positioned going into the final months of the presidential campaign. No public polls from Iowa have come out since the conventions; I’m curious to see whether the state of the race has changed here. Iowa is expected to be among the most closely-contested states this fall. The Washington Post/ABC poll findings on support for Clinton and Trump by education level are stunning. I enclose excerpts from the write-up below.

Final note: Iowa’s annual two-day sales tax holiday is happening this weekend. In theory, the temporary break is supposed to stimulate the economy. The Iowa Policy Project’s experts have been saying for years that the policy is a sham. In her latest column for the Cedar Rapids Gazette, Lynda Waddington compiled more evidence for scrapping this 16-year Iowa tradition.

Dan Guild follows up on his deep dive into the history of convention bounces. You can read his past writing for this site here and here. -promoted by desmoinesdem

On July 20th I suggested we would probably know who the next President is after the conventions are over. That post noted that since 1996 the average bounce out of a convention was 6.1 percent. Let’s look at how that compares with the bounces out of the two conventions just completed.

Essentially, the conventions were very close to the historical average. Importantly, though, Clinton appears to have picked about 2 points from where the race stood before the two conventions.

In more support for forecasters who view Iowa as a toss-up state, Donald Trump leads Hillary Clinton by a statistically insignificant 40 percent to 39 percent in a new CBS News Battleground Tracker Iowa poll conducted by YouGov. About 3 percent of the 998 “likely voters” surveyed between July 13 and 15 back Libertarian Gary Johnson, 2 percent Green Party candidate Jill Stein, 7 percent “someone else” and 8 percent are “not sure.”

Among respondents supporting Clinton, 50 percent said it is mainly because they like her, 37 percent said mainly to oppose Trump, and 13 percent said mainly because she will be their party’s nominee. The opposite was true for respondents planning to vote for Trump: 53 percent said they will do so mainly to oppose Clinton, 36 percent said mainly to support Trump, and 11 percent said because Trump will be their party’s nominee.

In Iowa’s U.S. Senate race, the CBS/YouGov poll found Senator Chuck Grassley ahead of Democratic challenger Patty Judge by 45 percent to 37 percent, with 16 percent not sure and 2 percent favoring “someone else.” In his previous re-election bids, Grassley has never been below 50 percent and less than 10 points ahead of his challenger in any public survey by a reputable pollster. YouGov now becomes the third firm (after Public Policy Polling and Loras College) to find a single-digit lead for the incumbent.

The full questionnaire for the CBS/YouGov poll is available here, along with cross-tabs. Assuming random sampling techniques produced a representative respondent pool, the margin of error for this survey would be plus or minus 4.8 percent. One possible problem with the sample: 41 percent of respondents said they are currently registered Republicans, 42 percent registered Democrats, and just 14 percent “not affiliated with either party.” More than 31 percent of Iowans who cast ballots in the 2012 general election were no-party voters. It’s possible that many of the registered Republicans or Democrats sampled by YouGov think of themselves as “independents” but changed their registration in order to participate in the February 1 Iowa caucuses or June 7 primaries.

YouGov polls are conducted over the internet; the firm received a “B” grade in FiveThirtyEight’s pollster ratings.

Donald Trump leads Hillary Clinton by 44 percent to 42 percent, and U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley leads Democratic challenger Patty Judge by 52 percent to 42 percent, according to a Monmouth University poll released today.

Only 6 percent of Iowa respondents surveyed between July 8 and 11 were undecided on the presidential race. Monmouth also found 6 percent support for Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson, 1 percent for the Green Party’s Jill Stein, and 2 percent saying they will vote for some other candidate. No Libertarian presidential candidate has ever received more than 1 percent of the vote in Iowa. Historically, minor-party presidential candidates have performed far less well in November elections than their summer poll numbers would suggest.

Iowa is a toss-up state in many election forecasts, and I’ve always expected a close race here, so I am not surprised to see Trump slightly ahead in a poll. That said, these Monmouth data are difficult to believe:

One unusual finding in the poll is that Trump leads among voters under 50 years old in Iowa. In Monmouth polls conducted nationally and in other states, Clinton has held an advantage with younger voters. Specifically, 51% of Iowa voters under age 50 currently support Trump, compared to 32% for Clinton, 7% for Johnson, and 3% for Stein or another candidate. Among voters age 50 and older, Clinton has the edge with 50% support, compared to 38% for Trump, 4% for Johnson and 1% for Stein or another candidate.

Monmouth’s numbers indicate that Grassley is in for his most competitive re-election bid. The last two public polls of Iowa’s U.S. Senate race were by Public Policy Polling, which does a lot of work for Democratic clients, including Judge’s campaign during the primary. So it was easy for Republicans to dismiss PPP’s findings showing Grassley below 50 percent and only 7 points ahead. In Monmouth’s survey, Grassley leads by just 10 points, which for him is a very small margin. He enjoyed larger leads in 2010 polls, other than those by Research 2000, a firm later discredited for apparently fabricating data.

You can’t say Monmouth’s sample is skewed to Democrats, because Trump is leading Clinton. The best news for Grassley is his job approval rating: 56 percent, with only 33 percent disapproving of his work in the Senate. However, only 25 percent of Monmouth’s respondents approve of the Judiciary Committee chair’s decision not to hold hearings on U.S. Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland.

Grassley’s favorables are in net positive territory, according to Monmouth: 46 have a favorable opinion of him, 31 percent unfavorable. Judge has more room to grow: 30 percent favorable, 14 percent unfavorable, and 56 percent of respondents not knowing enough about her to have an opinion. Grassley’s campaign has been trying to define the Democratic challenger in a negative way, most recently claiming in a press release today that she is harder to find around Iowa than a Pokemon.

Any comments about the presidential or Senate race are welcome in this thread. Monmouth surveyed 401 “Iowa residents likely to vote in the November election” between July 8 and 11, producing a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percent. Monmouth’s polling memo did not mention the likely voter screen used.

A new Loras College poll shows Hillary Clinton enjoying a double-digit lead over Donald Trump: 48.2 percent to 33.8 percent with no other candidates named, and 44.0 percent to 30.7 percent in a field including Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson (6.0 percent) and Green Party nominee Jill Stein (2.2 percent).

The same poll of 600 Iowa registered voters finds Senator Chuck Grassley barely ahead of Democratic challenger Patty Judge, 45.8 percent to 44.5 percent.

Unfortunately for optimistic Democrats, this poll appears to be an outlier.

Nate Silver released FiveThirtyEight.com’s 2016 presidential election forecast today. His model currently gives Hillary Clinton an 80 percent chance of beating Donald Trump in November. FiveThirtyEight sees Clinton as the favorite in Iowa, one of twelve “states to watch,” but her odds of carrying our state are somewhat lower than her odds of winning at least 270 electoral votes.

Clinton’s campaign bought more than a million dollars of air time in Iowa to run a mix of positive and comparative television commercials during the second half of June and July. That’s part of a $25.8 million ad buy in the eight states the presumptive Democratic nominee considers most competitive.

Public Policy Polling has published two Iowa surveys this month, both commissioned by progressive advocacy organizations. The first had Clinton leading Trump by 44 percent to 41 percent. The second, released yesterday, showed Clinton ahead of Trump by 41 percent to 39 percent.

Iowa’s electoral votes have gone to the Democratic nominee in six of the last seven presidential elections. (The exception was President George W. Bush’s narrow victory over John Kerry here in 2004.) However, no electoral vote projection I’ve seen considers Iowa a safe bet for Clinton. While none to my knowledge currently forecast our state leaning to Trump, the pundits and number-crunchers do not agree on whether Iowa leans Democratic or has no clear favorite going into the general election campaign. Follow me after the jump for the breakdown.

Like many political junkies, I’ve been fascinated the past few days by news about the June 23 “Brexit” referendum, in which roughly 52 percent of UK voters opted to Leave the European Union, while just 48 percent voted to Remain. The regional breakdown of the vote is fascinating, and the Financial Times published an excellent series of charts on “the demographics that drove Brexit” in this post by John Burn-Murdoch.

Leaving the European Union would hurt the UK economy in several ways, but that outcome isn’t a foregone conclusion. David Allen Green is the leading voice speculating that the UK government could disregard a vote for Brexit, because unlike a 2011 vote on electoral reform, the June 23 referendum “is advisory rather than mandatory.” On June 24, Green argued noted that Prime Minister David Cameron did not file the formal Article 50 notification that sets in motion a process for leaving the European Union. British Law Professor Mark Elliott speculated along similar lines here. Cameron had vowed to respect the results of Thursday’s referendum, but he will resign soon, and his successor will not be bound by his promises.

In this country, most of the commentary about Brexit has focused on whether a result that shocked UK elites means Donald Trump is more likely to win the November election. Panicky Democrats, please know that an unexpected result across the pond does not change the underlying dynamic of the U.S. presidential race.

The UK result was within the margin of error of pre-referendum polls that showed a close race. In contrast, Hillary Clinton has led Trump in every head to head national poll for more than a month now. Several polls, most recently ABC/Washington Post and NBC/Wall Street Journal, have shown her lead growing over the last few weeks. The U.S. electorate has a lower proportion of non-Hispanic white voters than the UK does.

The electoral college also favors Clinton. I don’t believe she will win as many electoral votes as in some recent projections, but remember: Trump needs to flip some states President Barack Obama carried twice. At this writing, he is not well-positioned to win any states Obama carried twice. But even if you give the Republican North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, and Virginia, which Larry Sabato sees leaning Democratic now, Clinton would still have more than 270 electoral votes. By the way, the president’s approval rating in the national polling average has moved above 50 percent for the first time in more than three years, Paul Brandus observed today. Obama will not be a drag on Clinton’s campaign the way President George W. Bush was for John McCain in 2008.

I’ve seen no evidence that Trump can draw a Democratic crossover vote large enough to compensate for the lifelong Republicans who are rejecting him. The Des Moines Register recently carried an op-ed by Des Moines native Doug Elmets, a former adviser to Ronald Reagan who will cast his first-ever vote for a Democratic president this year. Trump’s poor fundraising so far suggests that he won’t be able to fund as much GOTV in the swing states as Clinton will.

I enclose below excerpts from this piece by Buzzfeed’s Rosie Gray on why “Brexit Is Not The Same Thing As Trump.”

This post is an open thread: all topics welcome. UPDATE: Added below a new television commercial Clinton’s campaign will run on national cable networks to contrast “the reality of the Brexit vote with Trump’s response on his Scotland trip,” which focused on his own golf course.

Donald Trump just fired his campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, an unpopular figure among reporters and even in some pro-Trump circles. The person who interviewed Eric Branstad to run Trump’s Iowa operation is no longer with the campaign either, O.Kay Henderson reported for Radio Iowa today. But Governor Terry Branstad is all in for the presumptive GOP nominee:

“I’m certainly going to do all I can. I think people know me well that I’m not a shrinking violet,” Branstad told reporters. “I tend to be one that gets proactively involved and I certainly intend to in this campaign, as I have in the past.”

Branstad had hoped Trump would consider Senator Joni Ernst to be his running mate, but Ernst told reporters on June 16, “Nobody has reached out to me” from the Trump campaign. Unnamed Republican sources told Politico’s Eli Stokols and Burgess Everett that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich top the VP short list, with Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama “a distant third” and Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin “also in the mix.”

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton’s campaign plans to spend at least $1.2 million on television advertising in Iowa during June and July. According to NBC’s Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, and Carrie Dann, Clinton will spend $568,000 to run spots in the Des Moines market, $427,000 in the market covering Cedar Rapids, Iowa City, Waterloo, and Dubuque, $155,000 in the Omaha market, and $37,000 in Ottumwa/Kirksville, Missouri. After the jump I’ve enclosed the video of the first three general election ads the campaign is running in Iowa and seven other battleground states. One 60-second spot, similar to commercials run here before the Iowa caucuses, recounts Clinton’s decades-long advocacy for children. A separate 30-second spot focuses on her efforts to expand health insurance coverage for children. The final 60-second spot highlights the contrasting styles of Clinton and Trump, shown saying at rallies, “I’d like to punch him in the face” and “Knock the crap out of him, would you?”, along with the notorious clip mocking a reporter with a physical disability.

Public Policy Polling’s latest Iowa survey showed Clinton leading Trump here by 44 percent to 41 percent. The Democratic candidate’s favorable/unfavorable numbers were 42 percent/55 percent, which would not be promising except that Trump’s ratings are even worse: 33 percent favorable/64 percent unfavorable. That poll did not ask respondents whether they approved of Branstad’s work as governor.

UPDATE: Added below Branstad’s comments on Trump’s proposed ban on Muslims entering the country.

U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley has only a 48 approval rating among Iowa voters and leads Democratic challenger Patty Judge by only 48 percent to 41 percent, according to a new survey by Public Policy Polling. The firm robo-polled 630 Iowa voters on June 9 and 10, producing a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.

By way of comparison, a PPP survey taken in early June 2010 showed Grassley leading Democratic candidate Roxanne Conlin by 57 percent to 31 percent. In fact, the only 2010 poll that showed Grassley below 50 percent against Conlin was by Research 2000, a firm later discredited after analysts found “extreme anomalies” in its survey results.

Democrats will be encouraged by other findings from today’s PPP polling memo:

-Grassley leads Democratic challenger Patty Judge just 48-41. The candidates are knotted with independents at 40%, and Judge has a 48/44 advantage with women.
-After years of approval ratings over 50%, Grassley continues to find himself with less than half of voters giving him good marks in the wake of voter unhappiness about his handling of the Supreme Court vacancy. Only 48% of voters approve of the job he’s doing to 41% who disapprove, including an upside down 42/50 spread with independents. His personal favorability rating is below 50% as well, at 49/42.
-Patty Judge has more room to grow. 12% of Democrats are undecided, compared to only 2% of Republicans. And while Grassley has near universal name recognition already, Judge is currently known to only 66% of voters in the state. Judge actually leads Grassley 49/45 among voters who are familiar with her.

I eagerly await the next poll of the U.S. Senate race by Selzer & Co for the Des Moines Register. In February, Selzer measured Grassley’s approval rating at 57 percent, amid widepsread media coverage of Senate Republicans vowing not to consider any successor to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia this year. Grassley’s approval rating has not dropped below 54 percent in any Selzer poll taken in the past ten years.

Today’s PPP poll was commissioned by the Constitutional Responsibility Project, which supports filling the Supreme Court vacancy. In early March, a PPP survey conducted on behalf of Americans United for Change found Grassley at 47 percent approval/44 percent disapproval–considerably lower numbers than Selzer’s poll had found less than two weeks before. PPP had previously measured Grassley’s approval rating at 52 percent in August 2015, 50 percent last November, and 53 percent last December.

An April survey by Hart Research Associates found Grassley’s favorability rating at only 42 percent among Iowa voters. But that poll appeared to have “primed” respondents to evaluate the senator by his stand on the Supreme Court controversy. The latest PPP survey asked about Grassley, Judge, and the IA-Sen race without any issue-based questions.

UPDATE: Added below the Republican Party of Iowa’s response to this poll. I should have mentioned that Public Policy Polling conducted some internal polling for Judge’s campaign before the primary. This Federal Election Commission report lists a $2,500 disbursement to PPP on April 16.

In contrast to 2012 and 2014, no recounts or special nominating conventions delayed the tabulation of results from Bleeding Heartland’s latest election contest.

Follow me after the jump to see which predictions in this comment thread most closely corresponded to unofficial results from the Iowa Secretary of State’s website.

Spoiler alert: yet again, I failed to win. One of these years…

The Des Moines Register released more results from Selzer & Co’s latest Iowa poll today. Jason Noble led with the presidential preference numbers: among 542 Iowans likely to vote in the June 7 Democratic primary, 42 percent support Bernie Sanders, 40 percent favor Hillary Clinton, and 11 percent support neither candidate. (No-party voters or Republicans can change their registration to cast ballots in the Democratic primary.) In the same survey, 58 percent said Clinton is better positioned to beat Donald Trump, while 29 percent believe Sanders has a stronger chance in the general election.

The most striking finding for me: Clinton and Sanders have the same net favorability at 62 percent. About 35 percent have an unfavorable view of Clinton, and 34 percent say the same about Sanders. Clinton has only slightly lower “very favorable” and slightly higher “very unfavorable” numbers than Sanders does. That’s a big slide in positive impressions of the Democratic contenders compared to the last two Selzer polls before the Iowa caucuses. A Des Moines Register poll taken in early January indicated that “89 percent of likely Democratic caucusgoers view Sanders favorably, and 86 percent of them view Clinton favorably.” During the last week before the February 1 caucuses, Selzer measured the net favorability for Clinton at 81 percent and for Sanders at 82 percent–both close to the 86 percent number for former President Bill Clinton.

Granted, Selzer was not interviewing the same respondent pool in all of these surveys. Still, I was surprised to see net favorables for both Clinton and Sanders so low among people who are likely to vote in tomorrow’s Iowa Democratic primary. The long and increasingly bitter competition for the presidential nomination appears to have turned a lot of Democrats off both candidates. Many Sanders supporters resent Clinton’s establishment or corporate ties and believe primaries in some states have been “rigged” on her behalf. Many Clinton supporters are angry that Sanders plans to take his fight for the nomination to the floor of the Democratic National Convention, despite trailing Clinton by millions of popular votes and hundreds of pledged delegates–a wider gap than Barack Obama’s lead over Clinton at the same point in 2008.

Healing these hard feelings over the summer should be a priority for party activists. Democratic hopes of seriously challenging Senator Chuck Grassley, defeating Congressional Republicans Rod Blum and David Young, holding the Iowa Senate majority, and winning back the Iowa House depend on a strong turnout in November.

P.S.- The Iowa Democratic Party’s Caucus Review Committee should consider these findings as they weigh whether to introduce bound delegates, so that presidential campaigns don’t have to keep fighting each other at county and district conventions. I still occasionally hear Democrats expressing anger and frustration over this year’s Polk County Democratic convention.

UPDATE: The Associated Press reported on the evening of June 6 that Clinton has clinched the Democratic nomination, having won 1,812 pledged delegates in primaries or caucuses as well as the support of 571 superdelegates surveyed by AP journalists. More details are on the AP’s delegate tracker. Most of Iowa’s superdelegates committed to Clinton long ago, though to my knowledge Iowa Democratic Party Chair Andy McGuire is still officially neutral.

Since launching her U.S. Senate campaign in March, former Lieutenant Governor Patty Judge has held relatively few public events. She hasn’t put out attention-getting policy proposals. Her campaign has announced high-profile endorsements through news releases, not at press conferences where tv cameras would be rolling. She didn’t come to the two televised debates ready to drop headline-grabbing talking points.

Both Iowa and national Republicans have mocked Judge’s sparse public schedule, asking, “Where’s Patty?” Even some Democrats have been puzzled by the experienced candidate’s low-profile approach to a race she entered very late.

Judge’s strategy had a certain logic, though. If her internal polling showed her well ahead of the other three Democrats seeking the nomination–expected given her higher visibility as a former statewide office-holder–packing her schedule with rallies and town-halls would have little upside. Republican video trackers, like the ones who have been following State Senator Rob Hogg around since last summer, would catch any slip and blow it out of all proportion.

Two public polls released in recent days lend support to persistent rumors in Democratic circles that surveys conducted for the Judge campaign put her 10 or 15 points ahead of her nearest rival.

Guest posts on the presidential race are always welcome. -promoted by desmoinesdem

Content warning: horserace politics, abject punditry, a literal snotnose.

Q) How can you tell it’s May in a presidential election year?
A) Seasonal allergies have my sinus cavities leaking something resembling rubber cement, and the political media are sharing their gleefully dire predictions about IRREPARABLE DISARRAY within the Democratic Party.

The latest symptom of this condition (the one that doesn’t require me to tote an entire box of tissues to a backyard barbecue) consists of a pair of polls released over the weekend that show some shrinkage regarding Hillary Clinton’s lead in a hypothetical presidential matchup. The numbers suggest that, if the election happened this week, Secretary Clinton would struggle to overcome the support rapidly coagulating behind presumptive Republican hairpiece Donald Trump.

If you’re opening a new tab to research Canadian immigration procedures, I have good news. It’s f@%$ing May.

Only 42 percent of Iowa voters have a favorable view of Senator Chuck Grassley and a majority disagree with the Senate Judiciary Committee chair’s refusal to give U.S. Supreme Court nominee Judge Merrick Garland hearings and a confirmation vote, according to a new poll Seung Min Kim reported exclusively for Politico today. Hart Research Associates surveyed 400 Iowa voters and conducted “101 additional interviews with registered independents in the state” between April 22 and 24 on behalf of the Constitutional Responsibility Project and the League of Conservation Voters. Geoff Garin’s two-page polling memo is available here.

While Grassley’s favorable/unfavorable ratings were 42/30 in the new poll, a Hart survey two years ago showed 60 percent of Iowa respondents responded positively to Grassley and just 19 percent negatively.

A couple of caveats:

The things some people choose to spend money on.

A “group of investors loyal to presidential candidate Ted Cruz” announced on April 27 that they have created the Reignite Iowa super-PAC “to help protect Iowa conservative Steve King” from “Republican Establishment” efforts to remove the seven-term U.S. House incumbent. Jason Noble reported for the Des Moines Register that the super-PAC “will support King with direct mail, TV, radio and digital advertising in the district, with a budget anticipated in the ‘high six figures.’”

Yet a poll commissioned by the super-PAC suggests King had a four to one lead over State Senator Rick Bertrand, less than two months before the GOP primary.

First-term Representative Rod Blum, one of the top Democratic targets in this year’s U.S. House races, released partial results from an internal poll showing him with 12-point leads over either Pat Murphy or Monica Vernon, his two challengers in the first Congressional district. I enclose below the campaign’s statement, which says Blum leads Murphy by 45 percent to 33 percent and Vernon by 43 percent to 31 percent among 500 “likely voters” in IA-01. In the same survey, 43 percent of respondents said they approved of Blum’s work, while 27 percent disapproved.

It’s not clear what likely voter screen the polling co, inc used for this survey. Blum’s campaign has not responded to my request for further information, including the gender and partisan breakdown of the sample, the question wording, and what questions were asked before the ballot tests. Also unknown: whether this poll was in the field before or after Blum made headlines for wishing a recession on Washington, DC.

Former Iowa House Speaker Murphy was Blum’s general election opponent in 2014, and Cedar Rapids City Council member Vernon was the runner-up in that year’s five-way Democratic primary. Murphy takes higher name recognition into this year’s race, while Vernon has raised more funds and has more support among the establishment in Iowa and Washington, DC. This week, her campaign rolled out endorsements from State Senator Jeff Danielson and the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which includes 75 House Democrats. Vernon’s campaign also announced that it brought in more than $335,000 during the first quarter of 2016 and had $774,000 cash on hand as of March 31. Bleeding Heartland will follow up on Iowa Congressional fundraising after the April 15 deadline for candidates to file reports with the Federal Election Commission; year-end numbers are here.

The 20 counties in IA-01 contain 160,106 active registered Democrats, 139,973 Republicans, and 181,173 no-party voters, according to the latest figures from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office.

An internal poll conducted for Jim Mowrer’s campaign indicates that the Iraq War veteran “holds a commanding advantage over both of his opponents” seeking the Democratic nomination in Iowa’s third Congressional district. Some 36 percent of respondents would support Mowrer if the primary were today, according to the limited information released to Bleeding Heartland. Desmund Adams registered 17 percent support and Mike Sherzan 13 percent. After respondents heard “balanced messages on Mowrer and Sherzan, along with a slightly shorter message from Adams (to account for campaign funding discrepancies), […] Mowrer wins 50 percent of the vote to Sherzan’s 20 percent and Adams’ 18 percent.” I enclose below the one-page polling memo from the firm GBA Strategies.

Mowrer’s campaign declined to provide further findings from this survey or details from the questionnaire. I was most interested in the wording of the “balanced messages,” but no dice. (Perhaps Iowans who received this polling call will contact me to fill in the blanks.) Campaign manager Andrew Mulvey said the messages contained neutral biographical background, not negative information akin to another survey on the IA-03 Democratic race that was also in the field last week. Bleeding Heartland posted positive and negative messages from that poll here. Both Mulvey and Mowrer told me that their campaign did not commission the other survey, which Bernett Research Services conducted.

As mentioned in the GBA Strategies memo, the internal poll for Mowrer gave respondents less information about Adams because of “campaign funding discrepancies.” Year-end financial reports indicate that unlike the other two contenders, Adams will not have the funds for district-wide paid media before the June 7 primary.

Adams has been holding events around IA-03 since declaring his candidacy last July. Sherzan launched his campaign in December and is touring all sixteen counties in IA-03 this week. Mowrer joined the race in August and has attracted the most support from Democratic insiders and from organized labor. On March 24, his campaign announced endorsements from former Iowa Democratic Party chairs Roxanne Conlin and Scott Brennan. The same day, Mowrer unveiled constituency outreach chairs for veterans, women, Latinos, LGBT voters, and youth/students.

Any comments about the IA-03 campaign are welcome in this thread. Bleeding Heartland welcomes guest posts advocating for Adams, Mowrer, or Sherzan. Please read these guidelines before writing.

UPDATE: Added below a March 29 press release from the Adams campaign.

UPDATE: I got this call myself on March 22 and recorded the questions, so was able to fill in gaps below.

A poll is in the field testing negative messages about two of the three Democratic candidates running in Iowa’s third Congressional district. I haven’t received the call, but I discussed it with two respondents, one of whom shared notes on the poll with me. I encourage all activists to take notes on political surveys, whether they are legitimate message-testing polls, like this one, or push-polls. Campaigns use message-testing to collect and analyze data about candidates’ strengths and weaknesses and which talking points resonate with voters. In contrast, as Kathy Frankovic explained here a push-poll is “political telemarketing masquerading as a poll,” designed solely to disseminate negative information.

Three Democrats are seeking the nomination in IA-03: Desmund Adams, Jim Mowrer, and Mike Sherzan. The respondents who told me about this poll heard negative messages about Mowrer and Sherzan only. Both had said on the first ballot test that they were supporting Mowrer. If any Bleeding Heartland readers receive the same call, please say you plan to vote for Adams and then let me know whether the caller presents a list of unflattering statements about him. (UPDATE: Another respondent reports that he indicated strong support for Adams but was not given negative information about him.)

It’s possible that whoever paid for this call–my hunch is Sherzan’s campaign–is more concerned about Mowrer than Adams, because Mowrer has a lot of support from Democratic insiders and more funds to raise his name recognition across the district before June 7.

Fascinating look at how investors view the electability question. One 2003 study found that the Iowa Electronic Markets were “both closer to eventual election outcomes and more stable than polls over the course of election campaigns.” According to Muller, last night’s primary results dropped Clinton slightly to 87.1 cents, while Sanders rose to 12 cents. -promoted by desmoinesdem

Supporters of both Senator Bernie Sanders and Secretary Hillary Clinton are busy on social media making their respective cases for why one or the other has a better chance of beating Donald Trump in the General Election. Insofar as you’re reading this, you have no doubt heard the arguments on both sides. Sanders is a socialist, and more than half of the American electorate will never vote for a socialist. Clinton has too much baggage, and is owned by Wall Street. On the one hand, there are national polls showing Sanders may have the edge over Trump, relative to Clinton. On the other hand, all of Clinton’s baggage is already common knowledge (real or imagined), and no one has really started attacking Sanders yet.

This is all an exercise in conjecture. Even sophistry. While I generally come down on the Clinton side of this debate, it’s been little more than a general feeling. Perhaps there are actual data that might give us a reason to prefer one candidate over another, provided “Democrat Winning the White House” is an important issue for a voter. The Iowa Electronic Markets (IEM) provide the data required to address the issue with a little more statistical rigor.

Lots of votes remain to be counted from tonight’s primaries, but two losers are already clear.

Republicans are overwhelmingly rejecting Marco Rubio. To my mind, that’s a bigger story than Donald Trump winning the two biggest contests. In Mississippi, Trump won nearly half the vote, Ted Cruz won more than a third of the vote, and Rubio is down around 5 percent–in fourth place behind John Kasich. Trump won Michigan with more than a third of the vote, Kasich and Cruz are fighting for second place with about 25 percent each, while Rubio is unlikely to hit the 10 percent cutoff for delegates. As Taniel noted, Rubio missed statewide delegate cutoff thresholds in Alabama, Texas, Louisiana, Maine, and Vermont, and barely cleared them in Tennessee and Alaska.

Rubio and his surrogates continue to express confidence about winning the Florida primary a week from today, but the way he’s been hemorrhaging support, that scenario seems highly unlikely. Furthermore, Taniel observed, “Michigan & Mississippi (from which Rubio is probably being shut out) have as many delegates combined as Florida. Can’t all be about 1 state.”

On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders trailed by double digits in every recent Michigan poll but is leading by 50 percent to 48 percent with about half the results in. Although Hillary Clinton may be able to win the state narrowly once all the votes from the Detroit area come in, pollsters need to ask themselves some tough questions. For instance, did they underestimate how many independents would vote in the open primary? CNN’s exit poll suggests Clinton won Michigan Democrats by double digits but Sanders is ahead by more than 40 percent among independents. Whatever the final results, Sanders will be encouraged going into next week’s contests.

Clinton won Mississippi in a rout, with nearly 83 percent to just 16 percent for Sanders, at this writing.

Any comments about the presidential race are welcome in this thread. Trump’s victory speech/press conference was one of his most absurd yet–more like an infomercial than a political event.

UPDATE: Referring to the Michigan Democratic primary, Harry Enten pointed out that the difference between winning or losing narrowly means little in terms of delegates awarded to Clinton and Sanders. Psychologically, a win is always better than a loss, though.

SECOND UPDATE: One key factor for Sanders in Michigan was cutting down Clinton’s margin with African-American voters. She is still winning the black vote, but “only” by about a 2 to 1 margin. Nate Silver pointed out that Michigan results have confounded pollsters before.

THIRD UPDATE: Shortly after 10:30 pm, the Associated Press called the Michigan primary for Sanders. With a little more than 90 percent of the votes counted, he leads by 50 percent to 48 percent. Clinton is still above 80 percent in Mississippi, which is remarkable, but the Michigan upset is clearly the bigger story on the Democratic side.

Cruz leads in the early returns from the Idaho primary (Democrats didn’t vote there today) and has edged in front of Kasich for second place in Michigan.

According to the Michigan Campaign Finance Network,

Here’s a run down of spending in support of each candidate in Michigan as of March 6:

Bernie Sanders, $3.5 million
Hillary Clinton, $2.6 million
Marco Rubio (Conservative Solutions Super PAC), $1.2 million
John Kasich (Kasich campaign, New Day For America Super PAC), $770,353
Donald Trump, $184,636
Ted Cruz, $1,112

Likely final delegate allocation from Michigan: 25 for Trump 25, 17 for Cruz and Kasich, zero for Rubio.

WEDNESDAY MORNING UPDATE: Many people on social media have shared anecdotes about Democrats in Michigan who crossed over to vote for Kasich, thinking (based on polls) Clinton would easily win the Democratic primary. Nate Silver called the Sanders win the biggest upset since Gary Hart winning the New Hampshire primary in 1984. However, Bleeding Heartland user fladem worked on that Hart campaign and showed why Silver is wrong.

Cruz won Idaho’s primary with 45.4 percent of the vote, to 28.1 percent for Trump, 15.9 percent for Rubio, and 7.4 percent for Kasich. Trump took the Hawaii caucuses with 42.4 percent, to 32.7 percent for Cruz, 13.1 percent for Rubio, and 10.6 percent for Kasich. Neither Rubio nor Kasich will win any delegates from Idaho or Hawaii.

Former presidential candidate Carly Fiorina endorsed Cruz at a rally in Miami on March 9.

I haven’t seen a definitive delegate count yet, but fladem and Taniel have both updated their tables.

On the Democratic side, Mark Murray calculates that Clinton now leads Sanders by 761 to 547 in pledged delegates and by 1193 to 569 when superdelegates are counted. The overwhelming majority of superdelegates (including in Iowa) have endorsed Clinton.

After the jump I’ve posted excerpts from three early attempts to explain why Sanders won Michigan.

Iowans who approve of U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley’s work greatly outnumber those who disapprove, according to the latest poll by Selzer & Co for the Des Moines Register and Mediacom. Selzer conducted the survey between February 21 and 24, when Grassley’s stance against filling the U.S. Supreme Court vacancy was a prominent news topic. Among the 804 Iowa respondents, 57 percent said they approved of the way Grassley is handling his job and 28 percent disapproved.

That approval is down 7 percentage points from a year ago, but it remains well within his normal range over the last several years, Register pollster J. Ann Selzer said. Over the past decade, Grassley has rated as high as 75 percent, in January 2009, and as low as 54 percent, in February 2010.

Public Policy Polling’s last several Iowa surveys have all measured Grassley’s approval at 50 percent or higher, well above his disapproval rating, and showed the senator leading any of his declared Democratic challengers by more than 20 points. PPP surveys in the field last week indicated that GOP senators up for re-election in Ohio and Pennsylvania could be hurt by the refusal even to consider President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee. However, those senators don’t have Grassley’s 36 years of constituent service and traveling the state every year to fall back on.

Whether Grassley’s general election opponent turns out to be Patty Judge or Rob Hogg, Democrats have a long way to go to make this race competitive.

Incidentally, the Selzer poll showed that about a year into Senator Joni Ernst’s tenure, 43 percent of respondents approve of her work, while 31 percent disapprove and 25 percent are not sure. PPP has found similar approval numbers for Ernst in recent months, with disapproval numbers also in the low 40s.

UPDATE: Public Policy Polling released a new Iowa poll on March 4. Grassley’s approval and disapproval numbers were 47 percent and 44 percent, “down considerably from what we usually find for him as he loses crossover support from Democrats because of his intransigence on the Supreme Court issue.” Some 56 percent of all Iowa respondents and 58 percent of independents in the sample “want the Supreme Court vacancy to be filled this year.” In addition, by a 66 percent to 26 percent margin, Iowa respondents “say that the Senate should at least wait and see who’s put forward before deciding whether to confirm or deny that person.” Among independents in the sample, just 24 percent say they would be more likely to vote for Grassley if he refuses to confirm the president’s Supreme Court nominee, 48 percent say they would be less likely to vote for him, and 28 percent say it would make no difference.