Horrible news for Hillary Clinton in the Des Moines Register poll of Iowans out this morning:
Liberal revolutionary Bernie Sanders, riding an updraft of insurgent passion in Iowa, has closed to within 7 points of Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential race.
She’s the first choice of 37 percent of likely Democratic caucus-goers; he’s the pick for 30 percent, according to a new Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics Iowa Poll.
But Clinton has lost a third of her supporters since May, a trajectory that if sustained puts her at risk of losing again in Iowa, the initial crucible in the presidential nominating contest.
The “again” in that sentence must feel like lemon juice on a paper cut. Meanwhile, on the Republican side:
A new Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics Iowa Poll finds that Trump, the flamboyant real estate entrepreneur, has 23 percent support here. But Ben Carson, a soft-spoken retired neurosurgeon, has been a submarine, quietly cruising into second with 18 percent, just 5 percentage points from the front-runner.
Carson has the highest favorability rating of the 17 Republican candidates, with 79 percent who view him positively. Only 8 percent have negative feelings about him.
All the other candidates are grinding away in the single digits, in this order: Ted Cruz and Scott Walker (both 8 percent), Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio (both 6 percent), Carly Fiorina (5 percent), and Mike Huckabee and Rand Paul (both 4 percent).
Between Trump, Carson, and Fiorina, 46 percent of likely Iowa GOP caucus-goers currently prefer a candidate who has never been elected to any office before.
Deep in the numbers, we see that among likely Republican caucus-goers, Jeb Bush is at 45 percent favorable, 50 percent unfavorable. Among Republicans! Remember when Iowa was going to be key to his campaign?
These are some terrible numbers.
There hasn’t been much expectation that Iowa would be central to Chris Christie or Lindsey Graham’s hopes, but among likely Iowa GOP caucus-goers, they’re both doing terribly. Christie’s at 29 percent favorable, 59 percent unfavorable, and Graham is at 15 percent favorable, 59 percent unfavorable.