So when a poll— any poll— out of Nevada comes out, I get excited! And as luck would have it, one such poll has just come out, finding Hillary up 51-39.
Now, I don’t put a lot of stock into this poll. The margin of error of 7% is rather high, and there is no demographic breakdown, but if the 12% figure is in the ballpark— it’s not too far from the 16% spread in the October CNN poll— Hillary could be in some serious trouble.
If Nevada voted in a vacuum or as part of a national election, that would be a great number. However, conventional wisdom has it that the winner of Iowa— where the gold standard pollster shows Bernie within single digits— gets a 7% bump going into New Hampshire— where Bernie already leads by 9 in the polling average.
But what kind of bump does a candidate get from sweeping Iowa AND New Hampshire? Especially if New Hampshire is a blow out? We don’t really know, because candidates who do that historically begin locking up the nomination. In 2008, Obama and Hillary split the first two states, setting up a long, drawn-out delegate fight. In 2004, Kerry swept. In 2000, Gore swept. In 1992, Tom Harkin won Iowa as a favorite son, but wasn’t competitive beyond that. In ‘88, Gephart and Dukakis split the first two states.
Could a 2-0 sweep and 3 weeks to bake it into the cake make up 12 points? If so, Hillary faces the very real possibility of starting out 0-3, and enduring nearly 4 weeks of “broken inevitability” and “2008 deja vu” media coverage going into her “firewall” state of South Carolina. I’m not so sure a win there— especially if it’s close— will heal those wounds heading into Super Tuesday. It would also demonstrate that Bernie can win a state that isn’t lily white, Nevada being only 54% non-Hispanic white.
We have a race folks, and on that point, I agree with Hillary.