Last updated on September 25th, 2023 at 01:52 pm
The reason Bernie Sanders is beating Hillary Clinton in some Iowa polls is because more and more Democrats are viewing him as electable in November.
All of the recent polls agree on two points. Bernie Sanders is surging in Iowa, and the Sanders surge has less to do with Hillary Clinton’s performance as a candidate.
Philip Bump of The Washington Post examined the recent trends in the Iowa Democratic caucus and brought up the point that today’s Quinnipiac University poll should be taken with a grain of salt, because Quinnipiac has been polling more favorable to Sanders than other polls for months, but the overall trend line for Clinton is pointing downwards in Iowa.
Bump uncovered one key piece of data that goes a long way towards explaining the Sanders surge in Iowa, “On a number of other measures, Clinton held fairly steady. Sanders did gain ground in one important metric: The percentage of people who think he can beat the Republican in a general election jumped from 57 percent to 68 percent. Clinton still dominates here, though, with 4 in 5 Democrats thinking she’ll win in November.”
In recent days, the Clinton has shifted to including an electability argument in the early state push. While Democrats already know that Hillary Clinton is electable. The unspoken intention of the Clinton tactic to remind voters that she is the only electable candidate who can win in November.
On this point, Iowa Democratic voters are disagreeing. It is not a coincidence that the rise in the polls for Sanders (12 points) virtually mirrors his rise in electablility (11 points).
Hillary Clinton is in trouble in Iowa because Bernie Sanders is convincing voters that he is a candidate who could win in November. When the polls are looked at in total, the race in Iowa is a dead heat. The Real Clear Politics average of polls has Clinton leading Sanders 45.5% to 45.3%.
Bernie Sanders is defying all conventional wisdom, and doing what the talking heads thought was impossible, by convincing Iowa voters that he is electable.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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