Molly Ball has been documenting the atrocities experienced by the Democrats in Iowa for the Atlantic, and she’s produced some compelling reporting. Despite this, the polling out of Iowa has shown one one-point spread after another. There’s no question that Joni Ernst has a discernible advantage in the sense that she’s led in noticeably more polls than in which she has trailed, but it’s hard to find any polls outside the margin of error. As a result, we’re forced to go deeper and look at things like early voting. On that score, things look incredibly discouraging for Braley, to the point that one wonders how he is managing to do so well in the polls. Based on the early voting, I’d be ready to call this a blowout in Ernst’s favor.
This is why, if I am forced to make a call on what is basically a coin-flip, I really have no basis to pick Braley. But, to be clear, it’s still basically a coin-flip. If I pick Braley, I still have almost a 50% chance of being right. It’s just that I can find no basis to think that the odds would be in my favor.
Hillary Clinton will be in Davenport and Cedar Rapids today, stumping for the Braley campaign. In an election this close, Clinton’s advocacy could make a difference. Yet, I don’t forget that Clinton came in third, behind Barack Obama and John Edwards, in the 2008 Iowa Caucuses. She may be the Democrats’ second most popular advocate (after her husband) but this state isn’t in her wheelhouse. Bill Clinton was in Des Moines over the weekend, making an appearance with singer/songwriter James Taylor. Reportedly, the Big Dog will be back this weekend, too, despite the fact that Hillary was Braley’s third choice for the nomination back in 2007.
Braley also won the endorsement of the Des Moines Register after Joni Ernst cancelled her meeting with the editorial staff. A lot of people think the Register would have endorsed her if she had merely given them the courtesy of showing up. As newspaper endorsements go, the Register is generally considered to be more influential than average, so I wouldn’t dismiss the value of this for Braley, especially in a close race.
Obviously, I am still hopeful about this race, but the early voting numbers indicate that something is dreadfully wrong. The best spin I can put on it is that Ernst voters are more motivated and are voting without prompting, while the Braley contingent needs to be led dragging and kicking. If this is correct, then the Democrats’ ground game could still be working, it’s just that they have more of an uphill climb than they ever expected.
It shocks the conscience, but it looks like Ernst has to be favored to win this race and become a U.S. Senator with a six-year term.
I will not be shocked if this election turns out not to even be that close in the end.
But, I don’t want to be gloomy. If the polls are correct, this election is so close that you could actually make a difference by getting involved. You can sign up to volunteer here.
I am getting the opposite feeling looking at ballot request figures, etc. I think Braley wins by 1.5%.
I live in heavily democratic Iowa City & I’m just as confused as anyone. I agree, national polls don’t jive with individual races that are so close.
Why was yesterday’s Loras poll with great trend lines for Braley different than the 2 that were published today?
But we do have a local political guru, http://jdeeth.blogspot.com/ ,works in the Johnson Co. auditor’s office and he says this:
“The biggest question in the Johnson County election is: how many of the 7986 outstanding mailed absentee ballots will come back? (Also: why does there seem to be an inverse relationship between the distance a ballot has to travel and the date the request shows up? The last week always sees a disproportionate share of the long distance ballots.
There’s a Democratic skew to those unreturned ballots. The Republicans still trail in requests and returns, even beyond their 2 to 1 registration deficit, but they’re doing a noticably better job at getting them returned. Which plays into my theory that the GOP’s absentee improvement is coming out of their regular reliable election day voters, while Democrats were targeting weak voters.”
That makes sense.
If she does, Iowa will officially become a Crazy White People state, like Wisconsin. It was only a matter of time.
Ernst’s base is highly motivated.
If she can castrate hogs, maybe, they figure, she can find a way to castrate Obama and the Democrats.
C’mon, Iowa!
Make this psycho lose!
She can castrate Christie?
Imagining the shock among those old rightwing guys with the “feminazi” castration complex when they discover that they hired a castrator that won’t stop with Democrats.
Calling it for Gardner and Ernst, combined with the sure losses in MT, WV, and SD, means that you’re also calling the Senate for the GOP. Based on the polls, Pryor is faring worse than Braley; so, might as well call that one too. (And “the Big Dog” — how I dislike that term for a man that in two tries never managed to get 50% of the national popular vote — is apparently useless in his home state that is set to elect one of the Congressional impeachment leaders as its next governor.)
You do recall that in 2012 while Obama generally led in Iowa, and there were fifteen polls in the last month before the election, he was projected to win by an average of 2.4% — funny how when the ballots were counted that winning margin more then doubled to 5.8%. Glad I didn’t pay much attention to the 2010 Nevada Senate race polls or I too would have been calling it for Angle instead of getting it right and calling it for Reid.
I’m going to go with the last two Loras polls and call Iowa for Braley. (Not that I think the Clintons are much help.)
If the GOP does take the Senate things will be very interesting, in the Chinese curse sense, of course.
First, will the remaining Democrats continue the practice that the GOP adopted in January 2007 of filibustering every bill that they are against? As you older folks will remember, until that date it was common practice for the minority party to save the filibuster for unique situations. That is, it was common for the minority party to vote for cloture but then vote against the bill. Thus, for example, Clarence Thomas was approved by a 52-47 vote. Somehow I fear that the Dems will demonstrate their usual lack of backbone and go back to the old practice despite the last 8 years of 100% filibusters by the GOP.
OTOH, if the Dems do adopt that practice I am 99% sure the GOP will eliminate the filibuster in all but name only and blame the Dems – for which Politico and others will agree.
Now, for the past 4 years the GOP in the House has passed a shitload of crazy bills – sometimes the same bill dozens of times, and the Senate just ignored them. The GOP of course paid no price for this due to the complicit media and incompetent media management of the Democrats. With the Senate, will the two houses together pass all these crazy laws and send them to Obama to veto? Repeal Obamacare, etc?
One thing we can be sure of is that we’ll have a series of standoffs on the budget and probably numerous government shutdowns. The GOP paid no price for the last ones, so they’ll see no downside. I suppose you could have argued not to long ago that the Senate would have more sensible leaders than the House, but have you seen who they’ve been electing lately?
And the last thing we can be sure of is that even though the GOP will be passing laws ending Medicare health coverage guarantees, ending insurance for 10s of millions, and cutting taxes to nothing on the rich that the placebo Democrats will utterly fail to communicate this fact to anyone who is not closely paying attention.
Doubt that Senate Democrats would filibuster. They’ll just let the GOP dump the crap on Obama’s lap since they’ve already decided that he’s to blame for losing the Senate and House. The open question is whether Obama will behave like Clinton or Truman. His style suggests the former, but unlike Clinton, he’s not looking to run for a third term by proxy on a legacy of being cooperative with the GOP. And maybe he’ll find the words to appeal to the public and point out that he’s not going to sign crazy stuff. And let Congress override his vetoes if they can.
Yet, I don’t forget that Clinton came in third, behind Barack Obama and John Edwards, in the 2008 Iowa Caucuses.
Obama won all the caucuses, not just Iowa. His team targeted caucuses and had trained people in place to talk to participants while Clinton/Penn treated them like any other primary election. Keep in mind that caucus participants are on the extreme end of the motivated voter base, given the time commitment involved, and are very persuadable especially if one of the candidates is basically a no-show.
So I wouldn’t discount Hillary’s influence among Democrats in Iowa. On the other hand, I am extremely skeptical that last-minute visits by national politicians have any effect on local elections.
Ernst is still in the running because the Iowa local media won’t say point-blank that her failure to answer questions disqualifies her as a candidate. And she has played the national media’s mutual stroking game to advantage. Braley has from a national level looked MIA. And no one locally seems to have uncorked evidence of the real Joni Ernst.
No one has broken through the marketing model that Ernst has built around herself through not saying anything that has not been carefully scripted and transmitted through sympathetic media.
There is a lot of political malpractice going on here. It might just be rooted in an attitude of Iowa nice or that red meat Democrats in Iowa are at a disadvantage with the local and national media.
The GOTV operation look below the radar or nonexistent. We’ll know in a week which it is. Additional support must come from concerned Iowans at this point. Out-of-state without local connections is hard to sell in rural states unless there is pre-negotiation of acceptance of out-of-state reminder calls.
Nothing screams how corrupt all of the national media are in politics than this single race.
Nothing screams how corrupt all of the national media are in politics than this single race.
Colorado does as well. There is no way Gardner should be any where near national office.
Took a hammer to Ernst, shout out to the Teamsters, recalled the floods, talked about importance of real muscular government.
Winning message from our frontrunner – and she’s really working like a maniac these mid-terms, with big crowds.
The Clintons are great with the message, but watch the fine print!
What about the early vote?
http://www.quinnipiac.edu/news-and-events/quinnipiac-university-poll/iowa/release-detail?ReleaseID=2
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http://election.princeton.edu/2014/10/29/iowa-and-colorado-is-early-voting-showing-up-in-the-polls/
FWIW – Quinnipiac had Ernst at 50% with a 6 point lead in early September when none of the other polls indicated that the race was that settled. Since then it’s had Ernst with two point leads and in the latest with a four point lead at 49%. If they really got 36-57 Braley in the early voting odd that they’re not questioning that 49% with a four point lead in the same poll. Personally, I’m not convinced that they’ve been polling either Iowa or CO correctly.
Yep. Polling this cycle, even witin a partcular firm, has been incosistent to say the least.