Monday is caucus day in Iowa, marking the official start of the 2016 presidential election. Who will win?
According to Raleigh-based Public Policy Polling, who surveyed Iowa voters last week, both the Democratic and Republican races are still too close to call.
On the GOP side, Donald Trump leads Ted Cruz 31 percent to 23 percent, with Marco Rubio a distant third at 14 percent. Trump’s eight-point lead is slightly higher than it was when PPP last polled the state in December – possibly because Trump has recently made an issue of Cruz’s Canadian birth, and the issue seems to be resonating. (A majority of Iowa Republicans believe the president should have to be a US-born citizen.)
But PPP’s survey indicates the Iowa race is far from over: 31 percent of Iowa Republicans say they still could change their minds. In addition, GOP voters who support the ‘lesser’ candidates (Huckabee, Fiorina, Bush, etc) tend to prefer Rubio over Cruz and Cruz over Trump. That means the race could become extremely close if GOP voters decide to vote strategically, casting their ballot for one of the top candidates rather than ‘wasting’ their vote on a candidate with no chance of winning.
It’s a similar story on the Democratic side. PPP’s survey finds Hillary Clinton still with a narrow lead over Bernie Sanders, 48-40, with Martin O’Malley trailing far behind at 7 percent. That 7 percent could be critical, though. Iowa caucus rules dictate that when a candidate doesn’t reach 15 percent at a caucus site, their supporters ‘move’ to one of the remaining candidates – and O’Malley supporters favor Sanders over Clinton by a 57-27 margin. (PPP director Tom Jensen says that makes perfect sense: both Sanders and O’Malley are trying to appeal to the ‘anti-Hillary’ vote.)
Ultimately, though, the Democratic race will come down to turnout. Clinton leads Sanders by a wide margin among registered Democrats, but Sanders leads Clinton by an even wider margin among independent voters – so if more independents than expected turn out for the Democratic caucus, Sanders has a better chance of winning.
Tom Jensen discussed the PPP survey and the Iowa caucus with WCHL’s Aaron Keck.
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