After this cycle, we gotta do something about the bullshit monopoly Iowa and New Hampshire have on the nomination process, especially given how non-representative those two states are of the Democratic coalition. Every four years it drives me bonkers how much attention those two states get, and I’ve never been able to figure out how they’ve been able to maintain that monopoly in the face of 48 other unhappy states. But it is what it is, and we’re actually on the eve of real votes being cast. Crazy, huh?
Donald Trump is running away from the rest of the Republican field (or rather, the rest of the field is going nowhere with Trump stuck at just about a third of his party’s support). So once again, the action is all on the Democratic side. So let’s start with them!
Compared to last week, Hillary Clinton is down 1.5 points while Bernie Sanders is down one point. After a nice January Sanders boomlet, the race has settled down once again. Is this the calm before the storm, or a new status quo? Finally we don’t have to wait long to answer those questions. Things are happening!
Here are the individual polls that moved the aggregate over the past week:
|
CLINTON |
SANDERS |
ABC/Post |
1/21-24 |
55 |
36 |
12/10-13 |
59 |
28 |
Morning Consult |
1/21-24 |
48 |
31 |
1/14-17
|
54 |
30 |
CNN |
1/21-24 |
52 |
38 |
12/17-21 |
50 |
34 |
Public Religion
Research Institute
|
1/20-24 |
51 |
33 |
12/2-6 |
52 |
31 |
NBC/SurveyMonkey |
1/18-24 |
51 |
37 |
1/11-17 |
52 |
36 |
Fox |
1/18-21 |
49 |
37 |
1/4-7 |
54 |
39 |
So … anywhere between a 12-point Clinton lead and a 19-point Clinton lead. But of course, Sanders is doing much better in the two early states. Iowa, coming up in just a few days, is neck-and-neck, literally:
Whoo boy that’s gonna be a good one! The one poll missing here is Ann Selzer’s, which’ll come out Saturday. Of course, we’ll never know the actual vote total percentage, just the delegate count. But oh well, we go to war with the caucus we have. …
Lots of new Iowa polling, as you can imagine:
|
CLINTON |
SANDERS |
NBC/WSJ |
1/24-26 |
48 |
45 |
1/2-7 |
48 |
45 |
Monmouth U |
1/23-26 |
47 |
41 |
12/3-6
|
55 |
33 |
ARG |
1/21-24 |
45 |
48 |
1/6-10 |
44 |
47 |
Quinnipiac U
|
1/18-24 |
45 |
49 |
1/5-10 |
44 |
49 |
Iowa State/WHO-HD* |
1/5-22 |
47 |
45 |
- |
- |
- |
FOX |
1/18-21 |
48 |
42 |
12/7-10 |
50 |
36 |
CBS/youGov |
1/18-21 |
46 |
47 |
12/14-17 |
50 |
45 |
Emerson College |
1/18-20 |
52 |
43 |
- |
- |
- |
CNN |
1/15-20 |
43 |
51 |
11/28-12/6 |
54 |
36 |
These numbers suggest that the race hasn’t moved any this month. All of the upward movement for Bernie comes from polling with old trendlines, like CNN and Monmouth. Look at the polls with January trends—NBC/WSJ, Q-poll, and ARG—the numbers have barely budged.
My guess is that the electorate is locked in at this point, and it’s locked in at essentially 50-50 making it anyone’s to win. And given the bizarre nature of Iowa’s caucus system, Sanders is at a disadvantage:
According to an analysis provided to the Des Moines Register by Iowa pollster Ann Selzer, 27 percent of Sanders’ backers are located in just three central and eastern Iowa counties (Black Hawk, Johnson, and Story) though those places make up just 21 percent of likely Democratic caucus participants.
“There are only so many delegates that are going to come out of Johnson County, so if he wins by a little or by a lot, he could end up with the same number of delegates,” explained Selzer on Tuesday, referring to the home of the University of Iowa.
Now if Sanders wins the Iowa popular vote by a couple of points, but then loses the delegate count because of the concentration of his supporters … how does that serve anything resembling “democracy”? Iowa has to go. Fuck that system. It’s utter horseshit. The candidate with the most votes should be the winner, simple as that. There’s no way Sanders could lose the popular vote and get a majority of delegates, but that could certainly happen with Clinton. (Barack Obama “won” the Nevada caucuses in 2008 that way, by the way.) It’s a system that inherently handicaps one candidate simply because he has outsized support in the state’s most populous counties.
And remember, we won’t have a popular vote count in Iowa. So we won’t even know who really won the most votes. The whole system stinks …
P.S. That Iowa State poll? It was conducted over two and a half weeks and has only 185 respondents. It’s a piece of shit “poll.”
Anyhoo, New Hampshire is much clearer all around—both with Sanders’ consistent double-digit lead, and a system which rationally delivers victory to the candidate with the most votes.
Again, lots of individual polls this last week in New Hampshire:
|
SANDERS |
CLINTON |
Emerson College |
1/25-26 |
52 |
44 |
- |
- |
- |
ARG |
1/23-25 |
49 |
42 |
1/15-18
|
49 |
43 |
Franklin Pearce/Herald |
1/20-24 |
55 |
39 |
12/13-17 |
48 |
46 |
NBC/WSJ/Marist
|
1/17-23 |
57 |
38 |
1/2-7 |
50 |
46 |
Suffolk |
1/19-21 |
50 |
41 |
- |
- |
- |
FOX |
1/18-21 |
56 |
34 |
1/4-7 |
50 |
37 |
CBS/yougov |
1/18-21 |
57 |
38 |
12/14-17 |
56 |
42 |
We didn’t see much movement over the previous week in ARG’s latest poll, but all other January trendlines show big movement in Sanders’ direction. It’s hard to see Clinton winning the state absent a major polling disaster (as in, everyone got it wrong), which is why it’s curious to see Sanders playing coy about an unsanctioned New Hampshire debate.
It’s obvious that Clinton wants it from a position of weakness. She knows that if she can beat Sanders in New Hampshire, the primary is over, and she ain’t gonna do it without changing the dynamics of the race in the state. A debate could do it—remember, Barack Obama led in New Hampshire until his “you’re likeable enough” dick moment during the pre-election debate in New Hampshire. So Clinton certainly knows how a debate could change things up. So in a typical political calculation, there is little incentive for Sanders to play.
However, New Hampshire isn’t the end of the line, and Clinton has big advantages in the post-New Hampshire calendar. Perhaps the Sanders campaign thinks that a big New Hampshire victory will be enough to give him a big boost. He certainly is trying to get more post-NH debates in a deal. But if he doesn’t get them? Then he’s surrendered a high-profile, primetime chance to further promote his candidacy beyond the Granite State. It’s a big gamble.
REPUBLICANS
The GOP side is boring.
Trump is flatlining at just over a third of the vote, but no one else can get close to him. Meanwhile, the birther attacks have certainly taken a toll on Ted Cruz.
Given Cruz’s drop, let’s see if we see movement in the three buckets:
|
TRUMP |
RELIGIOUS RIGHT |
ESTABLISHMENT |
Undecided |
Jan 28 |
37.4 |
26.5 |
23 |
8.7 |
Jan 21 |
37.1 |
29.1 |
24.3 |
6.8 |
Jan 13 |
37 |
29.6 |
24.6 |
5.4 |
Jan 7 |
36.9 |
29.5 |
25.8 |
3.7 |
Dec 6 |
34.7 |
29.1 |
25.6 |
7.8 |
Nov 4 |
28.4 |
34.1 |
27.3 |
7.4 |
Oct 4 |
28.1 |
27.6 |
30.4 |
6.9 |
Sep 7 |
31.8 |
27.7 |
23.5 |
6.9 |
Aug 3 |
24.5 |
20.6 |
36.7 |
8.4 |
So Cruz takes a dive, and the support doesn’t go to Trump or the establishment, but into the undecided column. Well, maybe a sliver of it went to Trump, but the resilience of each of these buckets is quite remarkable. This is a starkly divided Republican Party, with three mutually exclusive factions unwilling to cede to the others.
Do we care about the individual polls on this side of the primary wars? Eh, I’ll include them:
|
TRUMP |
CRUZ |
RUBIO |
Bloomberg |
1/22-26 |
34 |
12 |
14 |
- |
- |
- |
- |
MORNING CONSULT |
1/21-24 |
40 |
11 |
9 |
1/14-17
|
39 |
13 |
9 |
CNN |
1/21-24 |
41 |
19 |
8 |
12/17-21 |
39 |
18 |
10 |
PUBLIC RELIGION
RESEARCH INSTITUTE
|
1/20-24 |
33 |
14 |
12 |
12/2-6 |
24 |
10 |
12 |
NBC/SURVEYMONKEY |
1/18-24 |
39 |
17 |
10 |
1/11-17 |
38 |
21 |
11 |
FOX |
1/18-21 |
34 |
20 |
11 |
1/4-7 |
38 |
20 |
11 |
Trump is going to be their nominee. I realized that months ago, and still, here I am going, Trump is going to be their fucking nominee! That never gets old.
Meanwhile, the Cruz birther attacks took their toll in Iowa:
Since last week, Trump is up a whopping five points, while Cruz is down 2.3 points. That’s a net 7.3 shift when Cruz could least afford it. No one else is relevant.
|
TRUMP |
CRUZ |
RUBIO |
NBC/WSJ |
1/24-26 |
32 |
25 |
18 |
1/2-7 |
24 |
28 |
13 |
MONMOUTH U |
1/23-26 |
30 |
23 |
16 |
12/3-6
|
19 |
24 |
17 |
ARG |
1/21-24 |
33 |
26 |
11 |
1/6-10 |
29 |
25 |
10 |
QUINNIPIAC U
|
1/18-24 |
31 |
29 |
13 |
1/5-10 |
31 |
29 |
15 |
IOWA STATE/WHO-HD |
1/5-22 |
19 |
26 |
12 |
- |
- |
- |
|
FOX |
1/18-21 |
34 |
23 |
12 |
12/7-10 |
23 |
27 |
15 |
CBS/YOUGOV |
1/18-21 |
39 |
34 |
13 |
12/14-17 |
31 |
40 |
12 |
EMERSON COLLEGE |
1/18-20 |
33 |
23 |
14 |
- |
- |
- |
|
CNN |
1/15-20 |
37 |
26 |
14 |
11/28-12/6 |
33 |
20 |
11 |
While that bunk Iowa State poll didn’t have crazy numbers on the Democratic side, here you see what happens when you have shit methodology with a miniscule sample size. Aside from that? Iowa is Trump’s, unless his lack of field organization actually matters. I’m guessing it doesn’t. Oh, and I’d forgotten that Cruz actually led Iowa for a while. Those were the days…
As for New Hampshire, it’s the John Kasich show! Well, not really, but he is suddenly in distant second place. So that’s kinda fun I guess.
I lied, it’s not fun. No one gives a fuck about John Kasich. Unless you’re suffering under his governance in Ohio, that is.
|
TRUMP |
KASICH |
CRUZ |
RUBIO |
EMERSON COLLEGE |
1/25-26 |
35 |
14 |
8 |
9 |
- |
- |
- |
|
|
ARG |
1/23-25 |
31 |
17 |
12 |
9 |
1/15-18
|
27 |
20 |
9 |
10 |
FRANKLIN PEARCE/HERALD |
1/20-24 |
33 |
12 |
14 |
8 |
12/13-17 |
26 |
8 |
12 |
12 |
NBC/WSJ/MARIST
|
1/17-23 |
31 |
11 |
12 |
11 |
1/2-7 |
30 |
9 |
10 |
14 |
SUFFOLK |
1/19-21 |
27 |
12 |
12 |
10 |
- |
- |
- |
|
|
FOX |
1/18-21 |
31 |
9 |
14 |
13 |
1/4-7 |
33 |
7 |
12 |
15 |
CBS/YOUGOV |
1/18-21 |
34 |
10 |
16 |
14 |
12/14-17 |
32 |
8 |
14 |
13 |
As you come to terms with the fact that Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee, picture this: Donald Trump’s concession speech in November 2016. It’ll be epic, assuming he even bothers giving one. I can’t fucking wait.