Hillary Clinton campaigns in Iowa, where the polls are mixed on whether she leads. (Getty)
The Iowa caucus is Monday, when the caucus-goers will decide what recent polls are showing to be a tight race. Hillary Clinton maintains the national polling lead, according to RealClearPolitics, but Bernie Sanders is pulling ahead in Iowa, according to one new poll. Despite these tight margins, the betting markets (according to PredictWise) and Iowa FiveThirtyEight forecasts continue to favor Hillary. Sanders continues his hold on New Hampshire polls.
Here’s a look at the state of the race:
Iowa
Bernie Sanders campaigns in Iowa, where one recent poll shows a lead and others a small deficit. (Getty)
The new Quinnipiac poll shows Sanders with a lead of 3 points over Clinton, 49 percent to 46 percent. That’s within the poll’s 4-point margin of error, and with O’Malley taking just 3 percent, meaning his supporters will be forced to choose one of the frontrunners, it’s possible Clinton could pull level even if these numbers hold out. It’s also an outlier, with most recent polls showing roughly as large a lead for Clinton; in another outlier from the same period, Clinton leads an Emerson poll by 8 points, 51-43.
In polling averages provided by RealClearPolitics, Clinton takes a 4-point lead, 47.9 to 43.9, with O’Malley at 4.3 percent.
Iowa Polling Averages (by RealClearPolitics)
- Hillary Clinton: 47.9%
- Bernie Sanders: 43.9%
- Martin O’Malley: 4.3%
FiveThirtyEight, which utilizes factors beyond polls in its “polls-plus” predictions, dropped Hillary Clinton’s Iowa chances to 67 percent. Sanders rises to 33 percent, with O’Malley at less than 1 percent. (Due to rounding, the sum of the averages exceeds 100.) Its polls-only forecast, which doesn’t use extra factors but weights the polls according to methodology and past accuracy, gives Clinton a 72 percent chance to win the primary, with Sanders at 28, well above her RealClearPolitics lead.
FiveThirtyEight Polls-Plus Forecast for Iowa
Click the “next page” button below for a breakdown of New Hampshire and national polls, as well as a look at the Democratic primary schedule.