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.

The Des Moines Register’s longtime pollster Ann Selzer identified the surge of first-time Democratic caucus-goers who would carry Barack Obama to victory in 2008. Her final poll before the 2012 Republican caucuses caught the strong upward momentum for Rick Santorum. Her last snapshot before this year’s caucuses for the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg Politics correctly saw a close race between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, with fewer first-time participants than eight years ago.

But Selzer’s view of the GOP campaign was unfortunately off the mark in several respects: putting Donald Trump ahead of Ted Cruz, underestimating turnout overall and particularly among evangelicals, and missing the late swing toward Marco Rubio that some political observers sensed by watching the campaign on the ground.

Yesterday Selzer commented to David Weigel of the Washington Post,

“In all the press I did in the last two days—and it was a LOT — I talked about the fluidity,” she wrote in an email. “Up to the last moment — including inside the caucus room — campaigns and supporters are working for change! Surprise! Big evangelical turnout — no doubt the biggest.” […]

“Trump was disliked by vast majority of caucus-goers who didn’t support him,” Selzer said. “Bernie’s extraordinary strength was with first-timers, who showed up in above-projected numbers. […]

“If I’m demoted to ‘silver standard,’ I’m fine with that,” she said. “I was never all that comfortable with the hype.”

Selzer can take some comfort in knowing that the last ten Iowa polls released before the caucuses all put Trump ahead of Cruz. The most recent poll to show Cruz leading was the Iowa State University/WHO-TV survey, which uses an unconventional screen for likely caucus-goers. But Iowa State/WHO understated support for Trump and Rubio. Given the tremendous difficulties involved in polling the Iowa caucuses, especially on the Democratic side, we should expect some misses, even from the top professionals in the field. As the presidential campaign progresses, here’s hoping political journalists will focus less on poll-driven horse race coverage.

UPDATE: Selzer did some “Tuesday morning quarterbacking” of her final poll in today’s Des Moines Register. I enclose excerpts below.

Continuing a six-part series. Part 1 covered basic elements of the caucus system, part 2 explained why so many Iowans can’t or won’t attend their precinct caucus, part 3 discussed how Democratic caucus math can affect delegate counts, and part 4 described how precinct captains help campaigns.

Measuring the horse race ahead of the Iowa caucuses poses special challenges, particularly on the Democratic side. Those problems affect even the Des Moines Register’s longtime pollster Ann Selzer, whom FiveThirtyEight.com has given an A+ grade and called “the best pollster in politics.”

Follow me after the jump to see why polling expert Mark Blumenthal has described the caucuses as a “pollster’s nightmare.”

Photo of a Ted Cruz supporter’s car spotted in Davenport on January 30; shared with the photographer’s permission.

The final Iowa caucus poll by Selzer & Co. for the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg Politics shows a tight race on the Democratic side and Donald Trump retaking the lead from Ted Cruz among likely Republican caucus-goers. Key findings and excerpts from the Register’s write-ups on the poll are after the jump.

Ann Selzer is “the best pollster in politics,” Clare Malone wrote in a must-read profile for FiveThirtyEight.com this week, which explained Selzer’s methods and “old-school rigor.” One key part of her “A+” methodology is starting from a list of registered voters, rather than using random digit dialing to reach Iowans by phone. Nate Cohn pointed out that Iowa polls drawing respondents from a registered voter list have tended to produce better results for Hillary Clinton, while surveys using random digit dialing have produced the best numbers for Bernie Sanders. Selzer also uses a simpler likely voter/likely caucus-goer screen than many other pollsters.

Bleeding Heartland guest author fladem showed yesterday that the Iowa caucus results have sometimes been noticeably different from the last polls released. Front-runners have often seen their lead shrink, while fast-rising contenders have “come from nowhere.” I am standing by my prediction that the structure of the Iowa Democratic caucuses, where only delegate counts matter, favors Hillary Clinton and will allow her to outperform her poll numbers on Monday night. Speaking of which, there’s still time to enter Bleeding Heartland’s Iowa caucus prediction contest; post a comment with your guesses before 6 pm central time on February 1.

Last spring I was sure Cruz would peak in Iowa too soon and crash before the caucuses. Campaign news from October through December convinced me that I was wrong, and I still believe more in Cruz’s ground game than in Trump’s. However, the Cruz campaign is starting to look desperate, shifting its advertising to attack Marco Rubio instead of Trump, and sending out a deceptive mailer, which implied that Republicans guilty of a “voting violation” could improve their “score” by showing up at the caucuses. I enclose below several links on the controversy and a statement from Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate denouncing the mail piece, which “misrepresents the role of my office, and worse, misrepresents Iowa election law.”

Pate’s predecessor, Matt Schultz, is chairing Cruz’s Iowa campaign and defended the mailing as “common practice to increase voter turnout.” As Gavin Aronsen discussed at the new website Iowa Informer, it’s rich for onetime “voter fraud” crusader Schultz to be “actively defending a purposefully misleading mailer.” The hypocrisy confirms my view that Schultz and Cruz are a political match made in heaven.

Governor Terry Branstad will introduce Chris Christie at a campaign stop today but won’t officially endorse the New Jersey governor. Several people with close ties to Branstad are active supporters of Christie, who has been stuck at 3 percent in the Register’s polling for months.

Final note: I’m so happy for all the volunteers who are able to knock doors in near-perfect (for January) weather during these last few days of the campaign. Weather conditions leading up to the 2008 caucuses were terrible.

Thanks to fladem for this historical perspective on late shifts in Iowa caucus-goers’ preferences. If you missed his earlier posts, check out A deep dive into Iowa caucus History and Iowa polling 45 days out: Let the buyer REALLY beware. -promoted by desmoinesdem

This is a continuation of an article I wrote about Iowa polling in November. At the time I noted how unpredictable the Iowa caucuses are. This article will to look at the last 48 hours. There are two lessons you can draw:

1. Front-runners beware

1. Expect someone to come from nowhere

Yesterday someone delivered a delusional commentary about Donald Trump’s prospects for becoming president.

But in a surprising twist, the illogical scenario came not from Sarah Palin in her Trump endorsement speech to a large Iowa crowd, but from Politico reporter Ben Schreckinger.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign has wisely avoided attacking Bernie Sanders these past nine months. But the front-runner’s tactics are changing as multiple Iowa polls show Sanders within striking distance or a little ahead in Iowa only a few weeks before the February 1 caucuses. Clinton would do better making the case that she is a stronger and more battle-tested general election candidate. Attacking Sanders on gun control and especially on health care reform could backfire with Democrats who are undecided or not firmly committed.

For months, Ted Cruz deliberately did not engage with Donald Trump, positioning himself well to inherit the support of voters who might lean toward the Republican front-runner. But since Cruz emerged as the primary threat to him in Iowa, Trump has hammered the Texas senator during his media appearances and at his campaign rallies. Trump has attacked on policy grounds (“Ted was in favor of amnesty”) and repeatedly raised doubts about whether Cruz, born in Canada to a U.S. citizen, is eligible to become president.

Over the last few days, Cruz finally started hitting back at Trump during public events and media availabilities. A poll in the field this week is testing numerous anti-Trump talking points with Iowa voters, and signs point to the Cruz campaign or an aligned group commissioning that survey. I enclose below Simpson College Professor Kedron Bardwell’s notes on the message-testing poll; look for Cruz to employ some of those lines during Thursday night’s presidential debate.

The Iowa Republican caucus polling average shows a tight race between the top two contenders here, with all other candidates well behind. But a closer look at the Iowa findings, particularly the latest from Selzer & Co for the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg News, suggests that Cruz could easily exceed his topline numbers on caucus night. Meanwhile, Trump seems more likely to underperform his polling numbers, hampered by a much less competent ground game.

No matter how closely you follow current events, some days the news will shock you. I enclose below the biggest Iowa political stories I never saw coming last year.

Please share your own thoughts on this subject in the comments.

Thanks to fladem for another in-depth look at Iowa caucus polling. In case you missed it, read his first post in this series: A Deep Dive into Iowa Caucus History. -promoted by desmoinesdem

Hillary Clinton has a narrow but stable lead over Bernie Sanders among likely Democratic caucus-goers in Iowa, according to the new poll Selzer & Co conducted for the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg News. Clinton is the first choice of 48 percent of respondents, while 39 percent favor Sanders and 4 percent Martin O’Malley. Selzer’s previous survey in October showed Clinton ahead of Sanders by 48 to 41 percent with Joe Biden not in the race, and by a 42-37 margin when respondents had the option of choosing Biden. After the jump I enclose highlights from Tony Leys’ write-up on the latest survey in today’s Des Moines Register and from Margaret Talev’s report for Bloomberg News.

The question now is whose campaign will do a better job identifying supporters and turning them out on a cold night in February. Our household continues to receive regular phone calls from field organizers for Clinton and Sanders and occasional calls from O’Malley’s campaign. Clinton could outperform her poll numbers if her larger field staff in Iowa does its job well, or if Sanders’ support is more concentrated in certain areas. Candidates can win only so many delegates per precinct, whether 50 people or 500 people show up there on February 1, so the Iowa Democratic caucus system rewards candidates with support more evenly spread out across the state.

Sanders could outperform his poll numbers in Iowa on the strength of greater enthusiasm among his backers. He still consistently draws larger crowds to his Iowa events. Now that the campaign seems to be going more smoothly for Clinton, Democrats leaning toward her may not feel it’s important for them to show up for the caucuses.

A Bleeding Heartland post is in progress on why O’Malley can’t get any traction here, even though he has been doing everything right in terms of retail politics and organizing, and his stump speeches are consistently well-received among Iowa Democratic audiences.

O’Malley’s best hope for viability in most precincts will be gamesmanship by well-trained precinct captains for Clinton or Sanders. The Iowa Democratic Party sets a fixed number of county delegates for each precinct, and the math that determines delegate apportionment creates a zero-sum game. “Donating” a few of candidate A’s supporters to candidate B can cost candidate C a delegate. This kind of maneuver cost Paul Simon a delegate in my precinct at my very first caucus in 1988.

Let’s assume O’Malley’s supporters are below the 15 percent threshold in my precinct, and I’m a captain for one of the other candidates. When it’s time to realign, sending a few people from my group to make O’Malley viable may cost our main rival a delegate, compared to what would happen if the O’Malley crowd were forced to go to corners for their second-choice candidates. I heard many stories along these lines after the 2008 caucuses. For instance, in the Clive precinct next door to my neighborhood, Democrats backing Clinton and John Edwards helped make Bill Richardson viable, in order to prevent Barack Obama from winning a second delegate.

UPDATE: Quinnipiac released its latest Iowa poll on December 15: Clinton is at 51 percent, Sanders 40 percent, O’Malley 6 percent, and just 3 percent undecided. I’ve added below highlights from the polling memo; click through for full results with cross-tabs.

Although I put up another thread for discussing the key findings from Selzer & Co.’s latest survey for the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg News, I want to focus on one surprising data point that some liberals were passing around social media on Saturday night: supposedly 49 percent of Iowans likely to attend the Republican caucuses support a single-payer health care plan.

Ann Selzer is a polling genius, no doubt about that. But this is a rare example of poor question wording in one of her surveys.

I’m going to mention some stands on issues some candidates have taken. For each, please tell me if you agree or disagree with this position. (Rotate list.) […]

Supports a single-payer health care plan instead of the current law

I would bet the farm that most of the Republican respondents who said they agree with that position heard “instead of the current law” and thought the caller was referring to a GOP candidate who wants to repeal and replace the dreaded Obamacare–not to Bernie Sanders, who supports “Medicare for All.”

I would also bet that most of the respondents had no idea that a single-payer health care plan means “socialized medicine,” as it’s often described in conservative circles.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread. The big news for Iowa politics watchers is the new poll by Selzer & Co. for the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg Politics, which shows a surge for Ted Cruz since October, a stable second-place position for Donald Trump, a big drop for Dr. Ben Carson, and Marco Rubio the only other candidate in double digits among likely Republican caucus-goers.

It’s the second poll this month to show Cruz in first place here. Like the Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll, Monmouth University found Cruz gaining most from Carson’s falling support. Last month’s endorsement by Representative Steve King has helped the Texas senator consolidate the most conservative parts of the Republican base, and he has an enormous lead among evangelicals. Some will attribute that development to backing from the FAMiLY Leader’s front man Bob Vander Plaats, but for months now, Cruz has had the largest number of evangelical pastors supporting him, as well as major social conservative voices like radio host Steve Deace and Dick and Betty Odgaard, the so-called “religious liberty ambassadors” because they shut down their business rather than buckle to pressure to allow same-sex marriages there.

Trump and his supporters have been touting a CNN poll released on December 7, which had him ahead of Cruz in Iowa by 33 percent to 20 percent, but I don’t believe that for a second–and not only because Ann Selzer has the best track record for polling this state. The CNN poll showed Trump does much better among no-party voters than among registered Republicans. An Iowa State University/WHO-HD poll that was in the field during early November found that a disproportionate number of Trump supporters have not voted in a Republican primary during the last ten years.

I don’t believe that Iowa State/WHO-HD poll reflects the current state of the race (it had Trump running behind Ben Carson, Marco Rubio, and “don’t know,” with Cruz in fifth place). But I do agree with those pollsters that whether someone has voted in a recent Republican primary should be factored into a likely caucus-goer screen. Attending the caucus takes considerably more time and effort than casting a ballot in a primary. You have to find your precinct caucus location (usually different from where you would vote in a November election) and go out for an hour or more on a cold night in February. Trump doesn’t have anything like the massive organization Barack Obama’s campaign built to identify and turn out supporters who had never caucused before January 2008.

I enclose below highlights from the new Selzer poll for the Des Moines Register as well as the main findings from the latest Monmouth University and CNN polls of Iowa Republican caucus-goers. Steven Shepard’s profile of Ann Selzer for Politico is worth a read.

A Bleeding Heartland post in progress will consider whether Cruz is now firmly in position to win the Iowa caucuses, or whether he is on track to peak too soon. I’m on record predicting Cruz would not win here, but that view was grounded in several assumptions that have turned out to be false.

Trump claims the Des Moines Register is biased against him, and speaking to a rally in Des Moines on Friday night, he characterized the Register’s chief politics reporter Jennifer Jacobs as “the worst.” For the record, I do not agree, even though I’ve had some serious issues with Jacobs’ reporting. But I did find something strange in her Sunday Des Moines Register piece about “the skinny” on each candidate. Jacobs called Carly Fiorina (at 1 percent in the Selzer poll) an “also-ran,” described Mike Huckabee (3 percent) and Rick Santorum (1 percent) as “yesterday’s news,” and said Rand Paul had “little opportunity” after dropping to 3 percent. Yet she put a positive spin on Chris Christie’s 3 percent showing:

After some of the best days of his campaign, the tell-it-like-it-is New Jersey governor has seen a slight bump in support, up from 1 percent in October.

And his favorability rating is no longer underwater. In the October Iowa Poll, it was 39 percent favorable, 49 percent unfavorable. Now it’s 46 percent favorable, 42 percent unfavorable.

I had a feeling that securing more friendly coverage in the Register was the one thing Iowa Republican elites could deliver for Christie’s campaign.

As if we haven’t heard enough lately about backroom dealings involving the University of Iowa, Ryan Foley reported yesterday for the Associated Press,

The University of Iowa has quietly awarded several no-bid contracts totaling $321,900 to a prominent GOP consultant for polling and social media services often delivered through subcontractors, a review by The Associated Press discovered.

Critics say the contracts with former Iowa Republican Party chairman Matt Strawn’s namesake company — uncovered through a public records request — look like a sweetheart deal among Republican insiders and a potential waste of money.

That’s putting it mildly.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal suspended his presidential campaign today, acknowledging that “this is not my time.” I enclose below the full text of his “thank you” message.

Jindal had visited Iowa 27 times, spending all or part of 74 days here since the beginning of 2013. Republican audiences generally received him favorably, despite his disastrous record as governor. His riff on “hyphenated Americans” was a crowd-pleaser, as was his assertion that “Immigration without assimilation is an invasion.” But in a crowded field with at least half a dozen candidates targeting the social conservative niche, Jindal didn’t have a lot of money to raise his profile through direct mail or paid advertising. Nor did he have a path to the main debate stage, since television networks have made the cut using national polls rather than surveys of Iowa Republicans.

Jindal had been scheduled to visit Iowa again this week, including an appearance at the FAMiLY Leader’s Presidential Family Forum. I suspect Representative Steve King’s endorsement of Senator Ted Cruz yesterday factored into the governor’s decision not to waste his time on that event. Although the FAMiLY Leader has showcased Jindal’s illegal efforts to defund Planned Parenthood in Louisiana, it appears to be a foregone conclusion that Bob Vander Plaats will jump on the Cruz bandwagon.

Any relevant comments are welcome in this thread. Douglas Burns interviewed Jindal for his latest “Political Mercury” column in Cityview. It’s a good read and a reminder of why some had speculated Jindal might become this cycle’s social conservative peaking at just the right time before the Iowa caucuses.

UPDATE: Added below some reaction and commentary to Jindal dropping out.

Representative Steve King endorsed Senator Ted Cruz for president a few minutes ago, calling the senator from Texas “the answer to my prayers, a candidate God will use to restore the soul of America.” After going through several key issues, including the need to stop President Barack Obama’s executive actions on immigration and to repeal “root and branch” the 2010 Affordable Care Act, King said his candidate would need to be committed to those policies. In addition, King said a successful candidate needs to be able to appeal not only to establishment Republicans, but also to “constitutional Christian conservatives” and libertarians. The candidate must be able to raise enough money to run a strong campaign, and must be able to inspire Christian conservatives for a large turnout. In King’s view, one reason Republicans lost the 2012 presidential race was millions of Christian conservatives staying home.

King argued that Cruz is “unmatched in his tenacity to take on the Washington cartels” and has “consistently stood on principle” against the D.C. elites. He “does listen, and he does think.” Asked how much he will do to support Cruz before the Iowa caucuses, King joked that “if they’ll let me,” he is prepared to hit the campaign trail, adding, “I’m in with both feet, I’m in all the way.” Asked to sum up his reasoning in one sentence, King said, “Ted Cruz is the full package, the constitutional conservative that can restore the soul of America.”

King didn’t endorse a candidate before the 2012 Iowa caucuses, and didn’t take a stand the previous cycle until shortly before the 2008 caucuses, when he endorsed Fred Thompson. I suspect that coming out so early for Cruz reflects King’s concern about Donald Trump’s and Ben Carson’s long ride at the top of the Iowa and national polls. During the Q & A, King said he hopes his endorsement will add “clarity” to Cruz’s position on immigration, and asserted that some others are trying to distort Cruz’s stance on that issue. When a reporter asked King why he doesn’t see Carson as a candidate who can restore the soul of America, King praised Carson’s intellect but suggested that Washington, DC is not “a zone that he is familiar with.” Later in the Q & A, King made a similar point about Trump–he doesn’t know enough about how Washington works. He made clear that he would support Trump if he became the GOP nominee and said he appreciated that Trump has raised some of the issues King has worked on for a long time.

UPDATE: Added below some reaction to today’s news and the official video of King endorsing Cruz, which the senator’s campaign sent out a few minutes before King made the big reveal at his press conference. One of the pro-Cruz super-PACs also announced King’s endorsement before the congressman did.

The second Democratic presidential debate kicks off in a few minutes at Drake University’s Sheslow Auditorium. Why Democratic National Committee leaders scheduled this event on a Saturday night is beyond me; but then, their whole approach to debates this year has been idiotic. I wonder how many politically-engaged Iowans who would normally tune in for a debate will watch the Iowa Hawkeyes football game against Minnesota tonight.

I’m not a fan of curtain-raisers such as lists of “things to watch for” or mistakes candidates might make. I will update this post later with thoughts on each contender’s performance.

Any comments about tonight’s debate or the Democratic presidential race generally are welcome in this thread. I enclose below the latest commercials Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have been running in Iowa. The new 30-second Sanders spot mostly uses images and phrases pulled from his strong introductory commercial. Clinton’s ad-maker this year is putting out much better material than I remember from her 2007 Iowa caucus campaign. To my knowledge, Martin O’Malley has not aired any television commercials in Iowa yet, but the Generation Forward super-PAC has run at least one spot promoting his candidacy, which Bleeding Heartland posted here.

UPDATE: My first take on the debate is after the jump.

A poll in the field this week is measuring Iowans’ views of the University of Iowa and whether certain changes would increase the perceived value of a degree from the university. The phrases enclosed below reflect what one respondent was able to recall from the survey, which lasted approximately 15 minutes.

I hope to update this post with much more detail about the question wording. If you receive this call (or any message-testing poll), please take notes and send them to the e-mail address at the bottom right of the Bleeding Heartland front page.

The survey included at least one question about the performance of the University of Iowa’s new president, Bruce Harreld. In interviews with Iowa Public Television and Iowa Public Radio today, Harreld said he has been “building trust” by meeting with as many stakeholders on campus as possible. He also endorsed a plan to seek more state funding for the university next year. Jeff Charis-Carlson reported for the Iowa City Press-Citizen on November 6 that the “faculty vitality” proposal would provide $4.5 million for recruiting new faculty and increasing salaries of tenure-track faculty during the 2017 fiscal year. Iowa Board of Regents President Bruce Rastetter orchestrated adding $4.5 million to the budget request for the University of Iowa a few days after the regents hired Harreld. The move was widely perceived as an effort to placate those who disapproved of the hiring before a scheduled meeting of the Faculty Senate. Iowa Public Television’s “Iowa Press” program will broadcast the full episode with Harreld this Friday and Sunday.

Hillary Clinton has gained ground in polls of Iowa Democrats since the first debate on October 13 and her marathon questioning by a hostile U.S. House select committee on October 22. The four most recent surveys here, all released in the last two weeks, put her ahead of Bernie Sanders by disparate margins. I enclose below highlights from polls released by Loras College, Monmouth College, Monmouth University, and Public Policy Polling, which has the newest Iowa poll out.

The big question is which pollster, if any, has a handle on distinguishing likely caucus-goers from others who will pick up the phone for an unknown number and agree to take a survey. Clinton leads by 14 points in Monmouth College/KBUR/Douglas Fulmer & Associates but by 32 points in Public Policy Polling and by a very-hard-to-believe 41 points in Monmouth University. One or more of those polls has to be off by much more than the mathematical margin of error, which assumes a respondent pool that perfectly represents the target population.

How many Iowans will come to their Democratic precinct caucuses on February 1 is anyone’s guess. No one seems to expect turnout close to the record-shattering level of nearly 240,000 in January 2008. If it’s much lower than that, who benefits: Clinton, by virtue of a superior campaign organization, or Sanders, whose supporters appear to be much more excited about their candidate? Former Senator Tom Harkin, who is backing Clinton, told the New York Times after the Iowa Democratic Party’s Jefferson-Jackson dinner, “This is not a slam dunk for her,” citing the tremendous enthusiasm for Sanders. With just a fraction of the mainstream media coverage Obama was receiving at similar stages of the campaign in 2007, Sanders has been drawing huge crowds in Iowa. His campaign is just starting to draw explicit contrasts with Clinton and only began running television commercials this week.

On a related note, Shane Goldmacher reports for Politico today on speculation about turnout for the 2016 Republican caucuses. Some Iowa GOP insiders predict 150,000 caucus-goers or more, while others think turnout will be only slightly higher than the record of 121,501, set in 2012. Bleeding Heartland will cover the latest Republican polling in Iowa in a future post; Ben Carson has led in most surveys conducted during the past month.

Two new polls of Iowa Republicans show Dr. Ben Carson has taken the lead from Donald Trump. Selzer & Co’s latest survey for the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg Politics shows Carson is the first choice of 28 percent of likely Republican caucus-goers, followed by Trump at 19 percent, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (10 percent), U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (9 percent), former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and U.S. Senator Rand Paul (5 percent each), business executive Carly Fiorina (4 percent), former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee (3 percent), Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, Ohio Governor John Kasich, and former Senator Rick Santorum (2 percent each), New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (1 percent), and the rest of the field below 1 percent.

Similarly, Quinnipiac’s latest poll of likely Republican caucus-goers found Carson ahead of Trump by 28 percent to 20 percent, followed by Rubio (13 percent), Cruz (10 percent), Paul (6 percent), Fiorina and Bush (5 percent each), and no one else above 3 percent.

Carson is the best-liked candidate among those likely to participate in the Iowa GOP caucuses. Both the Selzer and Quinnipiac surveys found that 84 percent of respondents view him favorably. I’ve posted more excerpts from the poll write-ups after the jump.

Carson is crushing the competition among social conservatives, an important bloc that tends to break late in Iowa caucus campaigns, as Bleeding Heartland guest author fladem discussed here. He has invested heavily in direct mail and leaving copies of his paperback books on Iowa Republican doorsteps, while generally escaping scrutiny from his competitors.

At some point, other candidates who are appealing primarily to the religious right must recognize that their path to relevance in Iowa runs through Carson. Only 22 percent of Selzer poll respondents said their minds are made up; 78 percent could change their minds. I’m curious to see when 2008 winner Huckabee, 2012 winner Santorum, and/or Jindal will start making a case against the surgeon. To be stuck in the cellar after spending substantially more time in Iowa than Carson must be so frustrating.

Cruz may also need to give Iowans a reason not to support Carson. Perhaps some of his Christian conservative surrogates could take on that role. “Opinion leaders” backing Cruz include numerous evangelical clergy, talk radio host Steve Deace, and Dick and Betty Odgaard, the self-styled martyrs to marriage equality in Iowa.

UPDATE: I should have mentioned that Nick Ryan, who led the 501(c)4 group American Future Fund for several election cycles and headed the pro-Santorum super-PAC during the 2012 primaries, signed on earlier this year to lead a super-PAC supporting Huckabee. It might make more sense for that group to go after Carson than for Huckabee to do so directly. Still, the next GOP debate on October 28 would be a good opportunity for rivals to score points against the new Iowa front-runner.

Hillary Clinton leads Bernie Sanders as the first choice of likely Iowa Democratic caucus-goers by 48 percent to 41 percent, with all other candidates far behind, according to a new poll by Selzer & Co. for the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg Politics. Jennifer Jacobs reported the main findings in today’s Des Moines Register. Since the poll was in the field before Vice President Joe Biden ruled out running for president again, the Register reallocated Biden’s supporters to their named second-choice candidate. Selzer’s previous Iowa poll showed Clinton ahead of Sanders by 37 percent to 30 percent with Biden in the field and by 43 percent to 35 percent without Biden as an option.

After the jump I’ve posted excerpts from Jacobs’ report, focusing on weak points for Clinton and Sanders.

Just 2 percent of respondents named Martin O’Malley as their first choice in the Register’s latest poll, behind “not sure” at 4 percent and “uncommitted” at 3 percent. Bleeding Heartland has a post in progress with my hypothesis on why O’Malley is getting no traction in Iowa, despite doing all the right things in terms of organizing and retail politics. Every time I’ve seen the former Maryland governor campaign here this year, audiences have responded favorably to his stump speech. I usually hear good feedback from other Democrats who have attended his events too, but it’s not translating into enough people signing supporter cards. Unfortunately for O’Malley, both Clinton and Sanders performed very well in last week’s debate, which drew record viewership for a debate featuring Democratic presidential candidates.

Jim Webb made the right choice to drop out of the race; the Register’s new poll showed him tied with Lincoln Chafee at 1 percent. Yesterday, Webb tweeted that it’s time for this country to “fix” the criminal justice system. I hope he will become heavily engaged in criminal justice reform efforts at the federal and state levels, instead of pouring his energy into an independent presidential bid.

The most shocking finding in the the Register’s latest poll: Iowa Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement is “good for Iowa.” Among likely Democratic caucus-goers, 39 percent said the TPP deal is good for Iowa, 27 percent said bad for Iowa, and 34 percent were unsure. Among likely Republican caucus-goers, just 27 percent said TPP was good for Iowa, 30 percent said bad for Iowa, and 42 percent were unsure. For decades, the Iowa business community and in particular representatives of Big Ag have spun “free trade” agreements as good for this state, so I would have expected much stronger support for TPP among Republicans.

UPDATE: Quinnipiac released a new Iowa poll on October 23 showing Clinton leading Sanders by 51 percent to 40 percent, with O’Malley at 4 percent. I enclosed below excerpts from the polling memo. Last month’s Quinnipiac poll of likely Democratic caucus-goers showed Sanders at 41 percent and Clinton at 40 percent.

A new poll is in the field testing numerous statements designed to convince Iowa Democrats to caucus for Bernie Sanders rather than for Hillary Clinton. I received the call last night and enclose my notes below. If you were a respondent for the same survey and can provide additional details, please post a comment in this thread or contact me via e-mail (the address is near the lower right corner of this page).

My best guess is that an outside group wanting to boost Sanders commissioned the poll. The questionnaire did not include any negative statements about the senator from Vermont. If the Sanders campaign were designing a poll like this, I think they would have tested a few arguments against supporting the candidate, to identify his possible weak points. An outside group planning to produce direct mail or paid advertising to influence Iowa Democrats wouldn’t need that information. They would only be interested in the best way to discourage people from caucusing for Clinton and/or encourage them to caucus for Sanders.

Although Sanders doesn’t have a super-PAC promoting his campaign, progressive advocacy groups that want him to become president may make independent expenditures supporting him. Note that the survey asked respondents whether they had a favorable or unfavorable opinion of the environmental group Friends of the Earth; no other non-profit organizations were mentioned in the questionnaire. Friends of the Earth endorsed Sanders this summer and would presumably be interested in knowing how well they are known/liked among early state Democrats.

It’s also possible that a conservative organization would commission a poll like this, hoping to hurt Clinton in the early nominating states.

Steven Shepard broke big news this week for political junkies: Gallup “isn’t planning any polls for the presidential primary horse race this cycle” and “won’t commit to tracking the general election next year.” Gallup editor-in-chief Frank Newport explained the decision “to put our time and money and brainpower into understanding the issues and priorities” of voters, rather than merely which candidate they prefer. Speaking to Harry Enten of FiveThirtyEight.com, Newport said “he wants to contribute to making the ‘government process work better’ and that he thinks issue polling can do that better than horse-race polling.”

Enten thinks it “sucks” that Gallup “gave up” on measuring the horse race, because despite problems with Gallup’s 2010 and 2012 election surveys, the firm uses “rigorous polling methodologies,” in contrast to some shady operators. Moreover, without horse-race polls to compare against election results, we won’t be able to judge the accuracy of Gallup’s issue-based polling, in Enten’s view.

Newport insists that Gallup’s decision is not about lack of faith in its polls’ accuracy.

Our decision is one of allocation of resources. In the 2012 cycle we invested a huge amount of time, money, and interviewing in tracking the horse race on a nightly basis.

Our question in this cycle:  is this the best investment of resources to fulfill the mission of helping understand what is going on in a presidential election and hopefully helping make the nation better off as a result.  Our thinking is that it is not; that tilting those resources more toward understanding where the public stands on the issues of the day, how they are reacting to the proposals put forth by the candidates, what it is they want the candidates to do, and what messages or images of the candidates are seeping into the public’s consciousness can make a more lasting contribution.

This may not be the focus that gets the most ‘clicks’ or short-term headlines, but is one which hopefully can make a real difference.  

Amen to that. Steve Koczela reported for Commonwealth magazine that the Pew Research Center will also do less horse-race polling during the 2016 election cycle.

At least since the 1970s, media critics have bemoaned the excessive focus on the horse race in political reporting. A major theme of Robert Entman’s 1989 book Democracy Without Citizens was the harm done by covering politics like a game, rather than informing voters about substantive outcomes from government actions. A new poll coming out nearly every day tends to drive news reporting and analysis toward who’s up and who’s down. That happens to be easier than discussing policies, “which would require journalists having to actually read legislation and analyse its implications.” I celebrate Gallup’s choice to get off the tracking poll treadmill.

It’s been a while since Bleeding Heartland had a discussion thread about the Democratic caucus campaign. After the jump I’ve posted highlights from the latest opinion polls of Iowa Democrats and other links on campaign infrastructure and strategies. Whether Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders is building a stronger Iowa organization so far is an open question.

Any comments about the caucuses are welcome in this thread.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker will end his presidential campaign today, the New York Times reported. The onetime leader in Iowa and national polling has been sinking for months and dropped to low single digits in national surveys following the first two Republican debates. Although Walker racked up a bunch of early Iowa endorsements in the winter and spring, I always felt he might retrace the path of Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, who quit the race four years ago after a disappointing Ames Straw Poll showing.

Part of me feels this humiliating end to a once-promising campaign couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. But the other part of me is worried, because Walker was running an incompetent campaign, and his exit means some more competent candidate may end up becoming the consensus establishment choice: perhaps Carly Fiorina, Senator Marco Rubio, or my worst fear for the general election, Ohio Governor John Kasich.

Any comments about the Republican presidential race are welcome in this thread. I will update this post later with reaction to Walker’s decision.

UPDATE: Ryan Foley points out that Walker quit the GOP primary race for Wisconsin governor early before the 2006 campaign, “a move that endeared him to the faithful and helped pave [the] way for [his] later rise.” The GOP has nominated failed candidates before (Bob Dole, John McCain, Mitt Romney), though Rick Perry’s experience shows second chances aren’t a given for one-touted candidates who under-performed.

Further updates are after the jump, including highlights from Walker’s press conference and the list of high-profile Iowa endorsers his campaign rolled out in August. They include nine current state senators and six state representatives, some of whom came on board with Walker much earlier in the year.

Outsiders reign supreme in Quinnipiac’s latest poll of “likely Republican Caucus participants” in Iowa. Click here for the polling memo and full results. After the jump I’ve posted a couple of tables from the release.

Donald Trump is the first choice of 27 percent of participants, with Ben Carson not far behind at 21 percent. Carson leads among self-identified “born-again evangelicals” in the respondent pool. Among all respondents, Ted Cruz places a distant third at 9 percent, followed by Jeb Bush (6 percent), Carly Fiorina, John Kasich, and Marco Rubio (5 percent each), Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee, and don’t know/not answer (4 percent each).

Just a couple of months ago, Scott Walker led Quinnipiac’s Iowa poll with 18 percent support. The latest survey puts him in tenth place with 3 percent.

Adding today’s data to findings from other recent surveys, I believe we can answer the question Bleeding Heartland posed about the Wisconsin governor in March. Despite getting a decent head start here, Walker is looking like the second coming of Tim Pawlenty.

Any comments about the Republican presidential race are welcome in this thread.

Quinnipiac is out with a new poll showing 41 percent of likely Iowa Democratic caucus-goers favor Bernie Sanders, to 40 percent for Hillary Clinton, 12 percent for Joe Biden, 3 percent each for Martin O’Malley and undecided, 1 percent for Jim Webb, and less than 1 percent for Lincoln Chafee. Although several polling firms have shown Sanders ahead in New Hampshire, no previous survey has found him closer than 7 points behind Clinton in Iowa.

Quinnipiac’s poll surveyed 832 “likely Iowa Democratic Caucus participants” between August 27 and September 8, producing a statistical margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percent. Other Iowa polls in the field either during that window or a few days before it found Clinton leads ranging from 7 points (Selzer & Co’s survey for the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg Politics) to 11 points (NBC/Marist) to 25 points (Loras College) to 28 points (a Gravis Marketing survey that inexplicably included Elizabeth Warren).

Click here for the Quinnipiac polling memo and full results with questionnaire. The survey found “a wide gender gap among Democrats today as Sanders leads Clinton 49 – 28 percent among men, with 16 percent for Biden, while Clinton leads Sanders 49 – 35 percent among women, with 9 percent for Biden.” Clinton’s favorability rating of 76 percent is comparable to Sanders’ 78 percent and Biden’s 79 percent, but her unfavorable rating of 20 percent is much higher than that of Sanders or Biden (6 percent and 9 percent, respectively). Respondents rated Clinton higher for leadership qualities and “the right kind of temperament and personality to handle an international crisis as president.”

The Quinnipiac Poll’s assistant director Peter A. Brown compared Sanders to 1968 anti-war candidate Eugene McCarthy, because he is “the candidate of the Democratic left, against his own party’s bosses and their prized presidential candidate […] Sanders has seized the momentum by offering a message more in line with disproportionately liberal primary and caucus voters.”

Happy Labor Day weekend to the Bleeding Heartland community! This is an open thread: all topics welcome. Click here for a brief history of the holiday.

For those wanting to enjoy the outdoors during the unofficial last weekend of summer, you may find some inspiration in the Iowa Department of Natural Resources’ list of fourteen “incredible hikes in our state parks and forests,” here and here. I’m embarrassed by how few of those parks I have visited, but I can highly recommend the walking trails at the Ledges and Dolliver Memorial State Parks.

Three more polling firms have released new Iowa caucus surveys since last weekend’s Selzer poll for the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg news. Highlights are after the jump. All recent polls put Donald Trump and Ben Carson well ahead of the rest of the Republican field in Iowa. Bernie Sanders has clearly gained some ground on Hillary Clinton, but other polls have found a larger lead for the Democratic front-runner here than Selzer did.

Eric Boehlert was quick to criticize the media for giving Selzer’s poll of Iowa Democrats such big play last weekend, even though it looks like an “outlier” in his view. I take his point, but the last time I said a Selzer poll appeared to be an outlier, I had to eat my words.

Before I get to the polls below, here’s one for the “campaigns don’t matter” crowd, who believe economic conditions largely decide presidential elections. The Moody’s Analytics model “now predicts a Democratic electoral landslide in the 2016 presidential vote,” with 326 electoral votes for the Democratic nominee and 212 to the Republican. Click through for more information on the Moody’s methodology.

Selzer & Co’s new survey of Iowa Republicans for the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg News gives GOP strategists plenty to worry about.

The top three “outsider” candidates (Donald Trump, Ben Carson, and Ted Cruz) are the first choice for 49 percent of respondents. The top three “establishment” candidates (Scott Walker, Jeb Bush, and Marco Rubio) are the first choice for only 20 percent.

The survey also indicates that several candidates considered heavyweight contenders are yesterday’s news for likely GOP caucus-goers. The 2008 caucus winner Mike Huckabee is sitting at 4 percent, tied with Rand Paul, who had been expected to inherit much of his father’s support from the last election campaign. The 2012 winner Rick Santorum is at 1 percent.

The Des Moines Register’s Jennifer Jacobs wrote up the key findings here, with input from Jason Noble. My first thoughts about the numbers are after the jump.

Hillary Clinton has a real fight on her hands in Iowa, according to the latest poll by Selzer & Co for the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg News. Among 404 likely Democratic caucus-goers surveyed between August 23 and 26, Clinton is the first choice of 37 percent, followed by Bernie Sanders (30 percent), Joe Biden (14 percent), “not sure” (8 percent), “uncommitted” (6 percent), Martin O’Malley (3 percent), Jim Webb (2 percent), and Lincoln Chafee (1 percent. The poll’s margin of error is plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.

When respondents did not have the option of selecting Biden, Clinton was the first choice of 43 percent of respondents, while 35 percent picked Sanders.

The Selzer poll will worry the front-runner’s campaign, especially since two surveys of New Hampshire Democrats have now shown Sanders leading Clinton in the first primary state. Notably, Selzer found Sanders way ahead among caucus-goers under age 45 (50 percent to 27 percent), among first-time caucus-goers (43 percent to 31 percent), and among independents likely to participate in the Democratic caucuses (a 21-point lead, but I don’t see the numbers in the write-up by Jennifer Jacobs). Caucus-goers who are “feeling the Bern” are not driven by “anyone but Hillary” sentiment. Some 96 percent of respondents backing Sanders are doing so “mostly because [they] support him and his ideas”; just 2 percent said Sanders is their first choice mostly because they do not support Clinton.

The poll is horrendous news for O’Malley, who has worked his heart out campaigning in Iowa. Since 2013, he has visited the state fifteen times, spending all or part of 29 days here. Every time I’ve seen O’Malley in person, his stump speech has been well-received, but Sanders seized the progressive/liberal niche early. I don’t see a path for O’Malley to become viable in most of the state’s precincts. While he has been filling small and medium-sized venues, Sanders has been drawing ridiculously large crowds all over the state, most recently at the Des Moines Register’s Iowa State Fair soapbox. At events where there is no externally-imposed time limit, Sanders keeps the crowd’s attention for over an hour, not counting time he spends answering questions.

I will update this post as the Register publishes more data from the new survey. A separate post will cover the latest Selzer poll findings on Republican presidential candidates in Iowa.

No Iowa teenagers have ever made a more important political statement than siblings John and Mary Beth Tinker, who refused to remove anti-war black armbands and took their fight for freedom of expression in Des Moines public schools all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

As for political pranks, it will be hard for anyone to top Brady Olson of Wallingford (Emmet County), who established a presidential campaign for his alter ego “Deez Nuts” and helped it go viral.  

Since late July, Vice President Joe Biden and his advisers have been touching base with Democrats about a possible presidential run. While on vacation this week, Biden has reportedly been “calling old friends and potential allies to discuss the possibilities and problems of jumping into the Democratic presidential race.” A recent Gallup poll of Democrats and independents who lean Democratic found that 45 percent want Biden to run for president, while 47 percent do not. Even as a non-candidate, Biden is averaging about 11 percent in national polls of Democrats.

Writing in USA Today, Susan Page explained why Biden could be a fallback for establishment Democrats “who are uneasy about Hillary Clinton” because of continuing controversy over her use of e-mail as secretary of state. Strategist Joe Trippi told Page that a Biden campaign “would completely alter the Democratic primary fight,” splitting the establishment vote and giving Bernie Sanders a big boost.

It’s hard for me to imagine Biden beating Clinton in the primaries. Nor do I see the e-mail scandals causing her candidacy to “implode,” as Chris Matthews suggested yesterday on MSNBC’s Hardball. That doesn’t mean Biden won’t roll the dice on getting his name on the ballot, just in case. A presidential campaign can be exhausting even under the best of circumstances, and I can’t imagine keeping up that kind of schedule while coping with a devastating bereavement. But Biden loves public speaking and working a room, so he might find some solace in running for president again. Iowa Democrats are generally fond of Biden and would welcome his presence here, even if they were sticking with other candidates.

Former Senator Tom Harkin endorsed Clinton late last week and spent much of Saturday with her at the Iowa State Fair. Many observers suggested the patriarch of Iowa Democrats weighed in at this time to send Biden a signal. Yesterday Harkin told MSNBC that Clinton is “doing everything right,” meeting voters in person and running a great campaign organization. Harkin also asserted that as he gets around Iowa, “people here are not talking about those e-mails. I don’t get where this is coming from.” Harkin added, “What this calls for right now is Hillary Clinton, it’s time for a woman – it’s past time, as a matter of fact – for a woman president.” Asked specifically whether Biden will run for president, Harkin suggested the Democratic presidential field is “set.” Click here to watch the whole interview.

This thread is for any scenario spinning about Biden’s plans or the Democratic presidential campaigns. After the jump I’ve enclosed excerpts from Harkin’s op-ed for the Des Moines Register explaining why he supports Clinton.

Iraq War veteran Jim Mowrer, the 2014 Democratic challenger to Representative Steve King in Iowa’s fourth district, announced this morning that he is running for Congress in Iowa’s third district. Earlier this year, Mowrer moved his family from Boone to Des Moines. I’ve enclosed his campaign’s statement after the jump, which lists 19 endorsers. Five are state legislators (two representing districts in IA-03), and five lead Democratic Party committees in IA-03 counties.

Speaking to Jennifer Jacobs of the Des Moines Register, Mowrer said he started thinking about running for Congress again a few months ago, when “a good friend” (Beau Biden) died: “That was another reminder of how fleeting life can be and we need to take action to change our world while we have the opportunity to do so.” Mowrer has known the Biden family for a long time; he chaired the Iowa veterans committee backing Joe Biden for president before the 2008 caucuses.

Earlier this year, Mowrer ran for Iowa Democratic Party state chair and was elected first vice chair. He confirmed to Bleeding Heartland that he resigned from that position this morning.

At this writing, Mowrer’s campaign website Jim for Iowa consists of a landing page, a volunteer sign-up form, a contribution button, and a link to the candidate’s biography. I assume issue positions and other information will be added soon. Mowrer is on Facebook here and on Twitter here.

Mowrer raised an impressive amount of money for his 2014 campaign against King, more than $2.1 million. So he starts this effort with an unusually large e-mail list of supporters and contributors. He may not match his 2014 fundraising levels, since IA-03 GOP incumbent David Young is neither as well-known as King, nor hated by Democrats across the country. But Mowrer will surely raise enough money to run a competitive district-wide race.

Mowrer will have at least one rival in the Democratic primary: Desmund Adams. State Senator Matt McCoy took himself out of the running last week. Simone Pathe reported for Roll Call on August 14 that some Democrats are recruiting U.S. Attorney Nick Klinefeldt to run in IA-03, and that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee included both Klinefelt and Mowrer in a recent poll. According to Pathe, that poll did not test former Governor Chet Culver, who said earlier this year that he was thinking about running for Congress. I don’t know any local Democrats who expect Culver to get in to this race at this point.

The latest figures from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office indicate that the sixteen counties in IA-03 contain 150,997 active registered Democrats, 163,107 Republicans, and 163,172 no-party voters.

That’s not a rhetorical question. I really want to know: why would anyone believe Donald Trump could be elected president?

Public Policy Polling released its latest Iowa caucus numbers yesterday. As other recent surveys of Iowa Democrats have shown, Hillary Clinton still leads by a considerable margin, but her lead has shrunk since the spring, as Iowans have learned more about other contenders. PPP now has Clinton at 52 percent support among “usual Democratic primary voters,” while Bernie Sanders has 25 percent, Martin O’Malley 7 percent, Jim Webb 3 percent, and Lincoln Chafee 1 percent.

On the GOP side, Donald Trump leads among “usual Republican primary voters” with 19 percent, followed by Ben Carson and Scott Walker (12 percent each), Jeb Bush (11 percent), Carly Fiorina (10 percent), Ted Cruz (9 percent), Mike Huckabee and Marco Rubio (6 percent each), John Kasich and Rand Paul (3 percent each), Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum (2 percent each), Chris Christie (1 percent), and Jim Gilmore, Lindsey Graham, and George Pataki (less than 1 percent).

Dropping to 3 percent earned Paul the “biggest loser” title from Public Policy Polling’s Tom Jensen and was the only topline result that shocked me. Things got way more interesting in the cross-tabs. I enclose below the five findings that struck me most.

As a bonus, I added at the end of this post completely unsurprising numbers from PPP’s survey of registered Iowa voters: Governor Terry Branstad is underwater with 42 percent approval and 47 percent disapproval. Last month’s high-profile line-item vetoes are even less popular.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

The Americans With Disabilities Act took effect 25 years ago this week. How many laws have changed the country for the better as much as Senator Tom Harkin’s greatest achievement? The ADA helped millions of people who might have been housebound–like my friend who was able to run errands or take her son to the park, even though she was confined to a wheelchair. Judy Schmidt, who chairs the Iowa Democratic Party’s Disability Caucus, shared how the ADA has affected her in a guest column for the Cedar Rapids Gazette. I’ve enclosed excerpts after the jump. Bleeding Heartland posted more background and links about the law to mark its 20th anniversary. For the record, Iowa’s senior Senator Chuck Grassley also voted for the final version of the ADA, as did most of his fellow Republicans. UPDATE: Added below excerpts from Harkin’s guest editorial in the Sunday Des Moines Register.

Donald Trump has led the last five national polls of Republican voters and is rising in stature in Iowa, if you believe the latest surveys of likely GOP caucus-goers. Follow me after the jump for details.

I brought my kids to Bernie Sanders’ town-hall in West Des Moines on Friday night. My reflections on that event are at the end of this post.