On the morning of caucus day, a poll has just been released that shows a last-minute surge for both Barack Obama and John Edwards. It appears that many of the undecided voters are turning away from Hillary Clinton. Here is the last from Iowa:
IOWA DEMOCRATS (likely caucus-goers) Barack Obama - 31% John Edwards - 27% Hillary Clinton - 24%
Remember, Obama trailed in this same Zogby survey just days ago, and slowly crept back.
On the Republican side, Huckabee has a comfortable lead over Romney. The surprise in the GOP poll is Fred Thompson, whose late surge has helped him pass McCain.
I know this won't ease the nerves a bit. But just over 24 hours from the caucus, I have no idea who will win Iowa. If I lived in Vegas and had to put money on a candidate, I'd maybe pick Obama, only because of the new , which puts him well ahead of Edwards and Clinton. Why? Unlike other polls, that one called cell phone users. Normally most polling companies are a bit skewed because they only call landlines. But the Des Moines Register phoned mobile users, many of which are younger and will support Obama.
However, there is another question. Will Obama's younger movement show up? One thing is helping Obama there. His support isn't just college adults. He also leads among the 30 to 55 age demographic. When it comes to age 55 and older, Clinton leads among the women, and Edwards has a huge lead among men. These numbers are true in just about any poll you look at.
Lastly, there is the second-choice option. In each precinct, if a candidate receives less than 15% of the vote, they can either not have their vote count or choose a new candidate. Among Richardson, Biden, Dodd and Kucinich supporters, Edwards has been polling very high as a second choice. However, within the last 48 hours, Dennis Kucinich urged his supporters to vote for Obama if he fails to get beyond 15%.
All three Democratic candidates are releasing final ads in Iowa on this eve of the vote. Let's start with John Edwards. The former North Carolina Senator decided to take the Nader theme of populism and corporate greed, and pledged to fight for the middle class.
Hillary Clinton was next. In her final argument, the Clinton campaign probably thought that a facial close-up would make her audience pay greater attention to what she was saying, and judge her based on content, not her rhetorical dryness.
Our Iowa Caucus coverage begins now. This is what we have waited one year for. We will follow the voting returns all day tomorrow, and have instant coverage as soon as news breaks.
I haven't been able to spend a lot of time on this site over the last few weeks. But I'm back, and ready to celebrate this electoral process with all of you. Between now and the vote, I will go over the Democratic race -- and yes, even my quick take on the Republican contest as well. Stay logged in all tomorrow as we live blog all the way to the end. We will have posts all this evening, all night and all day tomorrow!
In Iowa, if a candidate receives less than 15% of the votes in a particular precinct, the voters in that precinct caucus must choose another candidate. John Edwards is the second choice of most Richardson, Dodd, Kucinich and Biden supporters. Here is one key finding from a new released today:
Key finding: Mirroring other surveys, Edwards gets the mostsecond-choice support. When Richardson, Biden, Dodd, and Kucinichsupporters are realigned, the poll has Edwards leading with 36%,followed by Obama and Clinton tied at 26%.
Wouldn't that be something? The problem for Edwards is that he lacks a national campaign. If Edwards wins, Obama must finish second, or else he will have trouble maintaining support in New Hampshire and South Carolina. What Hillary would love more than anything is for this Democratic nomination process to be a shootout between herself and Edwards, as opposed to herself and Obama.
It all starts this week. After two new polls ( and ) this morning, it looks like not only is John Edwards in it, he actually could be the favorite to win. He has campaigned in Iowa ever since 2003, and has extremely loyal supporters that he knows will caucus for him. Democrats are expected to caucus this year.
Our coverage for caucus day will start at 7 PM ET/4 PM PT. We will be on top of it until the end of the night when we have a winner.
Brace yourselves everyone. There are just seven days until the big daythat we have waited about one year for. Yes, it has been about oneyear until Barack Obama decided to run, which set off a chain reactionthat forced Hillary to announce her candidacy a bit earlier than shehad originally planned.
Yes, the writers at this site have been on a two-month vacation. Butnow it's time to kick it up a few notches. We will have wall-to-wallcoverage of the Iowa contest next Thursday. The first returns willcome in during the early-evening hours, as each network will conductentrance polls, which in my mind are absolutely meaningless becausecaucus-goers often change their minds during the debate and discussionperiod with their neighborhood precinct members. It will beinteresting though to measure the difference between the entrance pollsand the actual vote, as it will show which supporters did a better jobof persuading undecided voters.
Right before Christmas, a new showed Hillary breaking away from the pack in Iowa, which is definitelyworrisome. However, due to the Christmas polling blackout, we won'tknow for a few days whether that poll was just an outlier.
Either way, I still think the race is tight. Don't count out JohnEdwards either, who has visited all 99 counties and has a massivelydetailed ground game. And will Obama's young supporters actually showup? We will find out in one week!
This is really not the news that Barack Obama fans need. John McCain is climbing in the polls, even in Iowa where he isn't liked by mainstream Republicans. If he finishes third or a surprising second, independent voters in New Hampshire will likely choose to vote in the Republican contest instead of selecting a Democratic ballot. Bad news for Obama. The Illinois Senator needs the support of independent voters in New Hampshire in order to beat Hillary, who is still very strong in that state among rank and file Democrats.
So what does this have to do with Iowa? Well, quite simply, it gives Democrats an even greater incentive to care what happens in the Republican race there, as it will affect the next voting state, which casts its ballots just five days later. Anti-Hillary Democrats ought to hope that McCain finishes as poorly as possible in Iowa. An ideal Republican finish in Iowa would consist of Huckabee, Romney and Thompson/Giuliani in the top-three. The latest GOP Iowa poll shows a recent McCain surge.
:
IOWA REPUBLICANS Mike Huckabee - 28% John McCain - 20% Mitt Romney - 17% Rudolph Giuliani - 13%
In New Hampshire, at the moment, McCain and Romney are tied.
It turns out that television networks could impact the vote totals in Iowa. From via :
"Instead of waiting for actual votes to be counted on the night of theJan. 3 Iowa caucus, a consortium of the major TV networks and TheAssociated Press will conduct an entrance poll to measure how peoplesay they will vote," reports.
"Those results will be broadcast long before the official vote is announced and, in some cases, before the voting is finished."
Hopefully no caucus locations have televisions running at the time. Otherwise, if totals show Hillary Clinton in the lead, will that let some wind out of the balloon for Obama-leaning supporters.
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