THE STATES
Iowa
CNN/ORC
Clinton 54
Sanders 36
O’Malley 4
The poll is almost identical to CNN’s poll a month ago, which pegged the race at 55-37. Clinton’s 18 point lead here is unchanged, and matches pretty well with her 17 point lead in the Pollster aggregate (which does not yet include this poll).
If you take a look at the history section below, you will see that two months out from the caucuses Clinton’s lead in Iowa had almost evaporated and by December Obama had taken the lead. This year, Clinton’s lead in the Pollster and RCP aggregates has not dropped below 10 points in a few months.
Tennessee
Vanderbilt University (11/11-11/23)
Clinton 48
Sanders 28
O’Malley 3
This is the first poll out of Tennessee, who goes to the polls on Super Tuesday, that I’ve been able to track down, but the results aren’t too surprising. Clinton posts a big lead but not an overwhelming one like we’ve seen in some of the other Southern states like South Carolina, Virginia, and Texas.
The Democratic sample is too small to be broken out by demographics, but we can fairly safely assume that the same dynamic is playing out in Tennessee that we’ve seen elsewhere- Tennessee is just whiter than some of the other states in the region.
There is also the possibility of fairly soft support for Sanders here- in states that have had less campaigning, Sanders has tended to score better with moderate and conservative Democrats who feel Hillary is too liberal. He might shed support as he becomes better known.
The question will likely be one of resources (perhaps time more than money). Where are the candidates going to focus their time between today and the March 1st Super Tuesday contests. Clinton has campaigned in Tennessee, but I cannot find any times Sanders has gone there.
NATIONAL
IBD/TIPP
Clinton 51
Sanders 33
O’Malley 1
While this poll shows a closer race than what we’ve seen in most other recent polling, this actually represents a slight improvement for Clinton over their last poll at the end of October, when she led 48-33. This particular poll has shown a larger pool of undecided voters fairly consistently. Given the other data available, this poll could fairly be called an outlier, but we will add it to the pile and see if it is seeing something changing before other pollsters do.
DISCLAIMER: I don’t have a lot of faith in the Ipsos/Reuters tracking poll, but they do occasionally release the daily results as well as their weekly releases, so I will include the numbers as they are available.
Ipsos/Reuters
Clinton 56
Sanders 32
O’Malley 4
A pretty dramatic one day shift from the 52-36 margin the tracker showed just a day before, turning a 16 point lead for Clinton into a 24 point lead. Did the race shift by 8 points in a day? Probably not. As a rolling tracking poll, Ipsos averages the past five days of interviews to come up with their number. This poll has been subject to fairly wild swings, as we discussed last Thursday, and the jump here is a result of a very bad day for Clinton rolling off as a very good one rolled in, while the opposite happened to Sanders.
Ipsos does not provide the daily results directly, but they do provide the high and the low marks each candidate got in that five day sample.
On Thursday, Clinton’s range was between 47 and 56, while Sanders was between 31 and 40. On Friday that had shifted to a 52-59 range for Clinton while Sanders dropped to 29-35. We can tell by watching the previous days’ ranges that the sample on that day was Clinton 59 to Sanders 29. We will have to wait and see what happens in their next release.
THE AVERAGES:
Tennessee does not have enough polling for an average. All reports are Clinton-Sanders-O’Malley
Iowa:
The aggregators do not yet have this poll included
National:
RCP: 56-31-3 (+25)
Pollster: 55-33-3 (+22)
THE HISTORY:
Iowa
The average of the five most recent polls starting on November 7th, 2007 (about two months before the Iowa caucuses)
Clinton 28
Obama 24 (Clinton +4)
The average of the five most recent polls starting today (about two months before the Iowa caucuses)
Clinton 52
Sanders 38 (Clinton +14)
There’s no doubt that Clinton is in a much stronger position two months out from the Iowa caucuses. She remains over 50% and with a much wider margin than she enjoyed in 2007. What’s more, Edwards was also averaging 20% at this point in 2007. All together, the three major candidates added up to just 72% of the vote, leaving a sizeable chunk of undecided voters or people supporting the more marginal candidates.
This time around, 90% of the voters are supporting one of the major candidates, leaving significantly less room for growth.
For comparison- the average of the five most recent polls starting on DECEMBER 7th, 2007-
Clinton 27
Obama 29
Edwards 22
By December 7th of 2007 (about a month out from the caucuses) Obama had taken a slim lead going into the holidays.
National
The average of the five most recent polls starting on November 7th, 2007 (about two months before the Iowa caucuses)
Clinton 45
Obama 23 (Clinton +22)
The average of the five most recent polls starting today (about two months before the Iowa caucuses)
Clinton 57
Sanders 30 (Clinton +27)
Once again we see a nominally stronger lead for Clinton, and much better positioning as she sits closer to 60 than she was to 50 eight years ago.
For comparison- the average of the five most recent polls starting on DECEMBER 7th, 2007-
Clinton 43
Obama 25 (Clinton +18)