NY Times/CBS Poll: Iowa Tight Among Dems; GOP Race In Flux

Comments (36)

pacpallez wrote on November 13, 2007 9:17 PM:

Seems like good news for Obama and Edwards. Higher favorability, lower unfavorability. Both are more likely second choices for caucus-goers. What's going on??? I thought this nomination was supposed to be a coronation. Who goofed???

bob wrote on November 13, 2007 9:33 PM:

The polls in New Hampshire will change overnight once the results from Iowa are in.

Frog Leg wrote on November 13, 2007 9:48 PM:

The news is good for Huckabee and bad for Romney. This is the first poll in which Huckabee has cracked 20%. He has all the momentum

Duck Foot wrote on November 13, 2007 9:56 PM:

Unless McCain wins NH, he is definitely a non-factor.

These polls indicate that Huckabee will win Iowa. If Romney barely beats Giuliani in NH and MI, and Huckabee has respectable showings, I could see them tying for second in SC behind...Huckabee (while Romney wins NV).

Then who wins the nomination?

NCSteve wrote on November 13, 2007 9:57 PM:

They took a poll of less than a thousand people in each state over the course of ten days and then conglomerated the results together as if that was meaningful?(!) Ten days? Two of the most prestigious news organizations in the nation, and they polled over the course of ten stinkin' days?

I can't believe I actually wasted time going over the results of this POS before I noticed this. I feel like a kid who saved boxtops so he could send them in for a great prize and then, when it finally arives, finds out its a total gyp.

DTM wrote on November 13, 2007 10:08 PM:

Strategic Vision (R) also has a new Iowa poll out:

http://www.strategicvision.biz/political/iowa_poll_111407.htm

For the Democrats it is Clinton 29, Obama 27, Edwards 20, Richardson 7, Biden 5.

Keith wrote on November 13, 2007 10:28 PM:

I think Iowa comes down to who can get out those currently not considered likely to caucus (youth, first time caucus-goers). To the extent they stay home, it's a real plus for Clinton.

This Strategic Vision poll just confirms that Iowa is a dead heat.

The CBS poll is absolutely worthless.

DTM wrote on November 13, 2007 10:51 PM:

Of course all the same caveats apply: plenty can still happen between now and the caucus, and the polls could look quite different at that point.

slcathena wrote on November 13, 2007 11:00 PM:

Couple of comments.

First, I agree that Huckabee is surging. If this continues, he wins Iowa and that straight decimates Romney.

On the Dem side: I *think* that 10/12-16 DPV value is the national number from last month. Based on that assumption, Hillary is 13 points lower in Iowa than she was nationally in terms of favorability, and 10 points lower in New Hampshire. By contrast, Obama and Edwards are both GAINING favorables and shedding unfavorables in the two early states.

Additionally, these NH numbers while a "sizable lead" mimic the numbers from the three polls since the last Dem debate showing her slipping 7-9% in NH on the ballot. Consistent trends like that aren't good for her campaign. In fact, the only good news I can see for her in these polls is that people still consider her the most electable by a wide margin.

dcshungu wrote on November 13, 2007 11:35 PM:

Additionally, these NH numbers while a "sizable lead" mimic the numbers from the three polls since the last Dem debate showing her slipping 7-9% in NH on the ballot. Consistent trends like that aren't good for her campaign. In fact, the only good news I can see for her in these polls is that people still consider her the most electable by a wide margin.

Try this exercise: Go to the pollster.com website and on the right-hand side you'll see links to statewide polls. Those are the key early primary states that would determine who wins this thing. Click on all of them, one after the other, and see the picture right now: Except for IA, where Clinton got in late, things do not look too promising for the challengers...

NH now looks pretty good for HRC as the latest poll "split the difference" between her high of about 20% last month to her "low" of about 10% after 3 post-"debate" polls, to a respectable 15%... SC still looks pretty good too.

DTM wrote on November 14, 2007 12:12 AM:

For perhaps obvious reasons, dcshungu insists on treating the results in different states as independent events, but the truth is that the primaries are a dynamic process, with the results in early states affecting the outcome in later states. In fact, pollster has a must read on this subject:

http://www.pollster.com/blogs/primary_polling_primer_timing.php

Just to give one example, Kerry was down double digits to Dean in NH right before the 2004 Iowa caucus (and in late 2003 the polls had Kerry down as much as 25-30 points in NH). So Iowa was instrumental in Kerry turning the result around in both NH and nationally (see also the chart at the pollster link above).

DTM wrote on November 14, 2007 12:16 AM:

Oh, and once again dcshungu is making up numbers. Clinton's leads in the three post-debate polls in NH were 10, 12, and 14, respectively, for an average of 12. So dcshungu's "about 10%" number once again appears to have been pulled out of thin air.

Keith wrote on November 14, 2007 12:26 AM:

First, the NH figures are stand-alone at this point, and there is little value to be gleaned from comparing them to other NH polls.

A more consistent analysis would be to look at the most recent NH polls which were conducted in October and again in early November. Rasmussen, Marist and Globe (UNH).

Rasmussen: Clinton (-6%), Edwards (+1), Obama (+7)

Marist: Clinton (-5%), Edwards (+2%), Obama (+5%)

Globe/UNH: Clinton (-6%), Edwards (+4%), Obama (+2%)**Gore was included in the October numbers (with 7%; not included in Nov.)

So, the recent trends indicated Clinton is trending down, and Edwards and Obama are trending up (Obama significantly). Clinton still holds a healthy lead.

slcathena wrote on November 14, 2007 12:29 AM:

dcshungu, I think you missed the important link on pollster.com relavent to this question.

Here:

http://www.pollster.com/blogs/re_did_clinton_take_a_hit_afte.php

My point was that today's numbers mimic the 3 post debate polls that pollster found statistically significant drops for Clinton, in NH.

hadenough wrote on November 14, 2007 12:35 AM:

More key findings:

"In New Hampshire, Mrs. Clinton leads with 37 percent, compared with 22 percent for Mr. Obama and 9 percent of Mr. Edwards."

"But Mrs. Clinton’s effort to present herself as having the experience to be president has clearly taken hold: 80 percent of Iowa voters described her as prepared to be president, compared with 68 percent who said that of Mr. Edwards and just 42 percent who said that of Mr. Obama."

Anonymous wrote on November 14, 2007 12:37 AM:

Yet she only has 25% of the vote according to this poll.

Daniel wrote on November 14, 2007 12:47 AM:

TWO other polls just released:

- Strategic Vision poll of Iowa has Clinton and Obama tied and Romney way ahead.

- SUSA poll of South Carolina has Clinton way ahead and the GOP primary completely divided.

dcshungu wrote on November 14, 2007 1:21 AM:

I gave links to trends and please go through with the exercise and get depressed. If you think poll numbers are exact, then you should seriously consider getting a life! I round things off to numbers such as 10% or 20% (the nearest decade) when they are within the MOE. Beats searching for numbers all the time, which would add little.

Then there is the latest CBS News/NYT poll for NH has:

* Among 471 Democrats, Clinton leads Obama (37% to 22%) in a statewide primary; Edwards trails at 9%, Richardson at 6%, Rep. Dennix Kucinich at 5%.

Clearly 15% in NH, can't round up or down.

Look at the trends. Little has changed!

To call me a liar for rounding things off when the MOE is +/- 4-5% is a sign of desperation...

dcshungu wrote on November 14, 2007 1:32 AM:

And for the moron who accused me of making up numbers...read what I had posted again:

NH now looks pretty good for HRC as the latest poll "split the difference" between her high of about 20% last month to her "low" of about 10% after 3 post-"debate" polls, to a respectable 15%... SC still looks pretty good too.

It even says a "low" of about 10%. Where is the argument ir the deception again?

Get a life...

strangelet wrote on November 14, 2007 2:08 AM:

The only tidbits I see are:

Question 47: which Dem has best chance in general election?
IA: Clinton 47%, Edwards 20%, Obama 17%
NH: C 68% E 8% O 14%

Electability??

Question 77: how long are you willing to have large numbers of US troops remain in Iraq?
IA D IA R NH D NH R
0-1 yr 58% 13% 57% 28%
1-2 yr 30% 21% 28% 22%
longer 11% 62% 11% 48%

Note to those who think "we" gave Congress a "mandate" for immediate withdrawal -- not every constituent agrees with you.

Question 81: In IA, 76% of Dem and 62% of Rep think Iran can be contained by diplomacy; in NH it's 73% and 68%.

Note to inside-the-Beltway: the Iran war may be a little tougher sell in the Heartland than was Iraq.

David wrote on November 14, 2007 2:09 AM:

The most important thing to notice about this poll is that Hillary is actually running *third* when first and second choices are combined (Edwards 23+25=48, Obama 22+24=46, Clinton 25+16=41).

party-of-one wrote on November 14, 2007 5:46 AM:

The New York Times article today (11/14) reporting on the poll is worth a read:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/14/us/politics/14poll.html?th&emc=th

It begins: "Democratic voters in Iowa and New Hampshire — the states that begin the presidential nominating battle — say Senator Barack Obama and John Edwards are more likely than Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to say what they believe, rather than what they think voters want to hear, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Polls."

This must make the Hillary machine very nervous. Their whole strategy has been: "inevitablity" "Hillary can beat the nasty Republicans" "poor Hillary is such a victim of mean, evil men". I can't really think of any substantial policy position that Hillary leads on. She makes pronouncments and posts policy papers, but she qualifies them so many times they are meaningless. All of her policy statements have been fashioned so that what ever the public sentiment at the moment or in a location, she can be quoted as supporting it. All sides on all issues.

We saw in the last NBC debate, when Hillary was questioned about a specific policy in her own state (Spitizer's driver's license for immigrants proposal) she took both sides. She got called on it by other candidates, and she and her campaign have reacted VERY badly: charging Russert with bias, charging democratic candidates with ganging up on her because she is a woman, and sending Bill out on the offensive to protect his wife from those mean ol' boys. They are not projectig the profile of a strong, independent, decisive, substantive leader.

The reports of planted questions, scripted answers, staged "empathy chats" with staff playing everyday people, are troubling, and more evidence of a campaign hiding and scripting Hillary rather than revealing her and her true positions on major issues.

The closeness of the Iowa race, I believe, shows what happens when voters focus on substance. Hillary's lead vanishes and she has to compete head to head with Edwards and Obama on THE ISSUES.... something she has great diffculty doing. I think the polls in New Hampshire and South Carolina will tighten as voters there begin to listen and think and not just react to names.

Anonymous wrote on November 14, 2007 5:58 AM:

hadenough notes from Iowa " ...Mrs. Clinton’s effort to present herself as having the experience to be president has clearly taken hold: 80 percent of Iowa voters described her as prepared to be president"

The key here is "efforts to present herself". So 80 percent in Iowa believe the spin that Hillary is qualified to be president. She will, however, continue to play the victim, waffle on major issues, see her "record" of ineffectiveness exposed in detail, and continue to demonsrate the fundamental lack of good judgment that led to votes for war in Iraq and attack on Iran. Perhaps the same voter daze that gave us George W. Bush as president will give us Hillary too. But maybe, just maybe, American voters will wake up and see the danger in giving power to Hillary so she can continue the Bush-Clinton dominance of American politics and government to serve the corporate, profiteering/war-mongering status quo.

Unfortunately in our society, many people believe the "truth" is whatever you can make someone else believe. The absolute TRUTH is that Hillary is not qualified to be president. I hope we don't have to have her in the White House, like Bush, for that to become clear to the majority of Americans. What a disaster.

DTM wrote on November 14, 2007 7:17 AM:

dcshungu,

I really do not get why you bother to lie about these things. Contrary to your implication, once you know the right places to look, it is easy to get the actual poll numbers for all the relevant polls: both pollster and realclearpolitics have them on one page (and I would note you have referred to both pollster and realclearpolitics in the past, so I know you are aware of these resources). Which also means it is easy for someone like me to factcheck your claims and demonstrate when you are making up your numbers.

And it all seems totally unnecessary to me: yes, I get that by saying the average lead in the first three post-debate polls in NH was 10 rather than 12, that makes a 15 point lead in the fourth poll look like a little more of an improvement (which despite your absurd "rounding" claim is obviously the point of your attempted deception). But is that tiny little bit of rhetorical advantage worth repeatedly trashing your own credibility?

In sum, this constant petty deception about the numbers just to make Clinton look a little bit better strikes me as pathological. And it certainly doesn't help your candidate at this particular point to be anything but strictly honest in her defense.

dcshungu wrote on November 14, 2007 9:05 AM:

Dissembling To Mindlessness.

10 v. 12 +/- 5 = You are stupid.

Any questions?

Just go away...

dcshungu wrote on November 14, 2007 9:15 AM:

Reductio ad absurdum

If 12% (with a MOE of +/-5%) is significantly better than 12% in some universe, and thus would be more advantageous to your candidate, why would you purposely choose to assign her the lower rating of 10%?

That makes sense only in a universe where those who Dissembling To Mindlessness live.

If that makes sense to you then please stay the hell away over there in that universe.

slcathena wrote on November 14, 2007 9:38 AM:

See, dcs, if this were a question of statistical margins of error, you might have a case, but it isn't. It's a question of your credibility.

Do you know how absurd you look when you cite places like pollster.com or RCP only to then fudge the numbers? Please.

Richard L. Adlof wrote on November 14, 2007 9:38 AM:

Dcshungu,

Yes. We all know you love the Hillary and will wade hip deep into darkness to find a spark of light for her. Thank you for proof that the pollsters might actually find folk that support Clinton and may not be dumping PIOYA (Pull it out your arse) numbers on us all.

Fanatical devotion such as yours is trully impressive. I hope that it does not result in a restraining order after the election.

CalD wrote on November 14, 2007 9:47 AM:

The claim by Hillary's Dem rivals that she's too politically calculating may be bearing some fruit, with Iowa voters split on whether they think she says what she believes or says what she thinks people want to hear (in New Hampshire, a solid majority trusts her to say what she believes)

Not that any of Clinton's Democratic rivals would ever be guilty of such a thing. :b

I also have to wonder if a certain willingness to make a few concessions to the will of the people voting for you is necessarily such a terrible thing in principle, this being a Democracy and all. I mean, isn't one of the criticisms we make of Bush and the Republicans that they just go around doing whatever they want without seeming to care what any of the rest of us think about it? Guess you just have to try and find that happy medium...

...but of course, trying to find a happy medium in that context would be "triangulating" and we know that's bad because the MSM tells us so. It's not at all like working to bridge the divide and find solutions that all parties can live with because that's what Obama does, and we all know that Clinton is too unwilling to compromise, being a product of the baby boom culture wars -- not seeker of consensus (who is not a triangulator) like Barack Obama.

And if that's too fine a distinction for you then there's always Edwards, who even though he was a fairly typical red state, blue dog himself when he was in the senate is currently, is currently positioning himself to the left of two people with much more progressive voting records. Of course neither that nor the fact that he seems to have decided that campaigns financed with private donations perpetuate a corrupt system right about the same time he ran short of money from private donations is in any way hypocritical. People can genuinely change and coincidences do happen. Anyway, at least he's angry. So for anyone who's out there asking, "Where is the outrage," I think I found it.

dcshungu wrote on November 14, 2007 10:02 AM:

More of the same...

Do you know how absurd you look when you cite places like pollster.com or RCP only to then fudge the numbers? Please.

What is with you people, anyway. Are you that dumb? Don't you know that statistically speaking 10% and 12% are indistinguishable if MOE is 4-5%, especially since we are dealing with opinion polling? Which universe do you live in? My innocuous rounding off the numbers (to the "detriment" of my candidate, mind you) rather than computing an actual mean has been elevated to the level of willful deception or cooking up the numbers, etc... The point I tried to make holds regardless The CBS/NYT poll that has HRC at 15% puts her somewhere between her earlier lead of ~20% (note the ~ in front of 20%) to her lead of ~10% or 12% if you wish -- about the average of the previous 3 polls for NH. What is so difficult to understand about that?

It would have looked better for me to assign the value of 12% to HRC if it were more advantageous than 10% but it ain't!

HRC's success in the polls must be unhinging many of you...

Get a grip!

Fanatical devotion such as yours is trully impressive.

And what the hell are doing here day in, day out, anyway?

dcshungu wrote on November 14, 2007 10:16 AM:

I also have to wonder if a certain willingness to make a few concessions to the will of the people voting for you is necessarily such a terrible thing in principle, this being a Democracy and all. I mean, isn't one of the criticisms we make of Bush and the Republicans that they just go around doing whatever they want without seeming to care what any of the rest of us think about it? Guess you just have to try and find that happy medium...

Good point. And, moreover, why couldn't what a candidate actually believes and what the people want or believe coincide? Or, why shouldn't a candidate change her mind if she happens to think, after listening to the people, that their position might be the more reasonable one and espouse it? Bill Clinton's effectiveness as POTUS could, in fact, be attributed to his ability to recognize where his own policies were defective and to "adopt" those of others as a remedy, including "borrowing" from the other side.

I guess those who bitch about this would rather have a leader who "stays the course" like the current Village Idiot, even when it is abundantly clear that the train is headed for a precipice...

Michael wrote on November 14, 2007 10:17 AM:

dc, based on your posts lately, I think you may have ocd as well.

signed - wacko, pinko, commie, left-wing, naderite, traitor, wingnut, ocd, etc.

dcshungu wrote on November 14, 2007 10:20 AM:

Just signing 'OCD' would do :-)

DTM wrote on November 14, 2007 10:25 AM:

dcshungu,

On a relatively minor point: when you take an average of several polls (in the instant case three), the MOE for the average is not the same as the MOE for each individual poll. You claim to be familiar with statistics, so I would have thought that you would know that.

On the more general point:

First, there is obviously no real justification for "rounding" two-digit numbers like 12% to the nearest decile (you are in effect rounding from two significant digits down to one), and it is particularly absurd to do so and then compare the result to a number you did not round to the nearest decile (in this case 15%). Indeed, all these numbers have already been rounded to two digits (hence why no one is talking about the lead being 11.896745% or something like that). And again, anyone versed in statistics would know you should not sequentially round numbers.

Second, why you would think these petty deceptions could help Clinton is not at all mysterious. In each case so far, you have misreported PAST numbers to make CURRENT numbers look better. So in the older case, you claimed Clinton's PAST national lead had only been 20% to make her CURRENT national lead of around 23% look better. In this latest case, you claimed Clinton's PAST lead in NH was 10% to make her CURRENT lead of 15% in the latest NH poll look better.

So what you are trying to do is painfully obvious. And again, it is so obvious, and so easy to factcheck, and really so petty, that I would again suggest it borders on the pathological.

dcshungu wrote on November 14, 2007 11:15 AM:

This is a waste of time...

NCSteve wrote on November 14, 2007 12:36 PM:

People, people, people. Ten days. The polling was spread out over ten days, and very eventful days they were. By the time they got to the 11th, the people they asked on the 2nd could have easily changed their minds. You guys might was well pull out a Magic 8-Ball and a Ouija Board and argue over the meaning of the results. It would probably be more productive.

Post a comment

Name:
Email Address:
URL:
	Remember personal info?
Comments: (you may use HTML tags for style)