Talk Elections

48/47. Both candidates are almost identically seen. (http://www.lcv.org/assets/pdf/iowa-senate-poll-10-17-14.pdf)

Maybe the race has tightened, but I question whether it is actually tied. Other recent polling still has Ernst with a small lead and I suspect that is where it will end up.

It is a little odd, though, that Iowa has possibly tightened as other races have moved towards the GOP. Why?

Take a bow, Joni.

Probably because Braley went from massively underperforming to performing okay.

Amazeballs. :D

Waiting for another poll to confirm that, but that's quite relieving.

This is an interesting development. This race will be down to the wire.

Great news!

My bet was always that IA's light blue tint would assert itself, so can't say I'm surprised.

I remember in 2010 how the bottom nearly fell out completely for the Dems in Iowa. IA-1 and IA-2 weren't considered competitive and then in the final weeks, the DCCC started spending money to support Braley and Loebsack which probably made the difference for them. It's why I have been taking Ernst's lead at face value.

From one poll. One ing poll. You gotta be ing kidding me.

There's also the high Indie concentration, which is great. However, I'm pretty sure Braley is winning Indies, which slightly propelled him into a MoE lead with this already opaquely conducted poll.

Quasi-internal as it was done for lcv. To the trash!

Other polls have shown Braley closing hard. Once again, my prediction is turning out to be correct.

Wait really? Nothing to see then, folks

Calmly take your head away from your own inksit

With Braley getting thrashed again and again, I guess they had to trot out PPP.

Guys, when you conduct 10 polls of a race where one candidate leads by 1-3 points, you're bound to get 1 or 2 that show the other candidate with a narrow lead. This is totally consistent with what we know, and Ernst is still on track to win.

This is a poll for a democratic group.
But I'm not surprised. This race will be a very close race.

The numbers are not good for Ernst. In other polls, she went from 6% leads to just 2%, so that indicates that Braley is closing.

The last one had Ernst up two. Time to be realistic.

While this is a partisan-affiliated poll, I have not noticed a substantive difference between their public and sponsored polls this cycle. While this adds slightly more credence to the idea that Ernst has lost ground, the fact that every other poll shows her up by 1-4 points demonstrates that she still has the edge.

Oh, Republicans here.

Poll shows Ernst up six: "We're going to net eight seats!"
Poll shows Braley up one: "Nah, this can't be tied."

The spinning here is pathetic and hilarious.

It's not, and we're still gaining eight seats :)


Adding this quote to my signature.

Both polls deviated from the consensus of pollsters. It would be foolish to evaluate a race based on individual polls as opposed to the aggregate picture that all the legitimate polls tell.

You were saying that Terri Lynn Land would win and argued with me about it, and it turns out that I was right, since that seat turned out to be a poor prospect for Republicans. Add that to your signature.

In reality, Ernst went from -4 to tied in the Loras poll, tied to +2 in the marist poll, and tied to +4 in the Suffolk poll.


Someone's closing all right.

I don't see you bitching when Krazen proclaims the end of the Democratic Party every time there's a virtual tie. You're in no position to talk.

Oh like you guys are any better

Wrong as usual. There were at least two polls that showed Ernst up six, but that lead collapsed when both pollsters polled again (DMR and Quinnipiac). Further more, Ernst is hitting a ceiling of 47-48, which is about what she will get on election day.

Actually, that's directly from RCP. Try again.

::)

I should note that of the three polls showing Ernst's position worsening, PPP's is the only one that seems that it could potentially be indicative of a trend, if only because their previous numbers were right in line with the consensus to begin with. However, the fact that several other pollsters have now shown Ernst with a slight lead indicates that PPP's poll being an outlier is just as much of a possibility.

You ignored the fact that the DMR poll had Ernst up 6% last month, but when they polled again, she collapsed to 1%. Quinnipiac had Ernst 6% last month, but only up 2% when they polled again.

The IA absentee request trend is not really encouraging though.

The Dem-lead is down to 2.7%, while the final margin in 2010 was D+5.7% ...

What is your point? Go sit down, please.

Junk Poll!

Hahahaha

And you ignored the loras, marist, and suffolk polls that show ernst growing her lead.

Are you referring to this?
http://dd.aoshq.com/iowa-ballot-returns/

The idea that a company that previously had a poll deviating from the consensus by several points is now posting numbers consistent with other pollsters is not evidence of "momentum" for Braley; more likely it is attributable to random chance. As I stated earlier, the only definitive evidence we have so far of a Braley comeback is a partisan poll from PPP, and until other polls start to show similar movement away from the consensus of a slight Ernst lead, PPP's result should not be taken at face value.

The problem with your logic is that they polled the race before she had a burst of momentum that showed up 6%. Their most recent polling was at the end of the peak or after it. The trends among pollsters that polled during her peak shows a trajectory downward, not upward.

But please, keep it up, this 5150 meltdown is hilarious.

Not the returns (because they lag behind), but the requests:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oCBdr7Mu_PzF454sbZDmIpYMlehTzISDLNxeJKOTGtA/edit?pli=1#gid=0

You're right, PPP is lying and faking polls for Braley. As always, you people are 100% right!

ITT: people who don't understand MoE.

Stupendous news! An extremist nutjob like Ernst has no business being a US Senator.

Is it possible that Braley is improving because of early voting? In other words, Dems are getting a lot of people out to vote who would normally be shut out of the LV screen, but you can't say someone who already voted isn't a likely voter.

You really believe the above?

Yes?

Ernst's position on Agenda 21 certainly qualifies as an extremist position. Not to mention, she called the shooting at UCSB as an accident, which was just plain crazy.

The question mark appended to the "yes" meaning that you are unsure if you really believe what you said?

The question mark was because your question was fairly odd, considering any rational person knows that Joni Ernst is an extremist nutjob.

My guess is that I would take exception to a fair amount of Agenda 21 myself.

IC. I guess that I am just irrational then. Thanks.

The GOP has taken a completely different stance on early voting this year (to their credit), so there is no way the dems will finish with an outsized lead. However, the GOP they are targeting Republicans, which are highly likely to vote anyways on election day.

The Dems made a huge effort to target casual dems/independents early, and it may be the difference at the end.

Perhaps. Unless you think that someone who thinks Obama is a dictator that should be impeached, peddles Agenda 21 conspiracy theories, supports Personhood which failed even in Mississippi, thinks the EPA should be abolished, thinks Iraq had WMDs, etc. is not an extremist. She's basically a more charismatic version of Sharron Angle. I know the Republicans have gone far right recently, but even by that standard she's still way out of the mainstream.

It probably is helping , but it depends on the poll. Early voting definitely helped Braley on the Selzer poll, which used too tough of a likely voter model 2 months away from the election.

Honestly, the biggest problem from Ernst is that as the light shines on her more, her views for Iowa are problematic at getting to 50+%.

She would not be in this race if it wasn't for Braley's early mistakes, however, to his credit he has preformed well in the debates. The problem with that is very few watch the debates.

It's only light blue in Presidential elections, but I guess that's all this board ever uses when saying "red state" or "blue state."  Iowa has a Republican governor, Republican senate, Republican house, a Republican Senator (soon to be two, possibly) and their House delegation is every divided.

I'm pretty sure the Democrats control the Iowa State Senate, plus we've probably got a small edge in the race for Latham's house seat and Braley could still win this race (despite his best efforts :P ).

Well good, its what we confirmed all along, its a toss-up.

BTW: This thread was created 5 hours ago and it already has 3 pages! Wow

Look at the Dems slobber over an internal. It would be precious if it wasn't so very sad.

()

Welcome to the ignore list.

Thank you, I was sick of you replying to my posts. Don't let the door hit you.

Don't worry, it's mostly useless posts!

This is actually incorrect.

cough

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/14/world/middleeast/us-casualties-of-iraq-chemical-weapons.html?_r=0

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2014/10/no-theres-still-no-evidence-there-was-active-wmd-program-iraq

It's not a revelation that Iraq had chemical weapons in the 1980s.

Agreed. A small Ernst win is within the margin of error of this poll as well.

Indeed. Ernst is of the mind that the weapons were there, but Iraq moved them before the invasion.

The point of a polling average is to reduce the standard error, as a polling average effectively increases the sample size. If we were to treat the polls taken in October by PPP, Suffolk, Quinnipiac, Selzer, Loras, and Marist as one large poll, that would have 4,559 respondents (which results in a margin of error of 1.45% (http://www.comres.co.uk/poll-digest/11/margin-of-error-calculator.htm#)), with Ernst leading by roughly 1.3%. While that is still within the margin of error, and thus not enough to definitively say Ernst is ahead, the margin of error only refers to a 95% confidence interval. Thus, I do not think it is unfair to say that Ernst probably has a lead, unless there is reason to believe in a systematic bias in every Iowa poll of the past two weeks.

Still a long 18 days to go and just one poll. That said, there really isn't anything about this sample that should bring questions.

What is funny is Republicans running around screeching that this means nothing. It's not the breakthrough that the Dems seem to be saying, but it's still PPP and it does have to be taken seriously.

Seriously Torie. I may've been a godless Democrat not THAT long ago, but how is she materially different than, say, Michelle Bachmann? If Ernst isn't extreme, then.....???

Both candidates are terrible, so why would we be surprised that this is so close? Honestly, my heart goes out to the voters of Iowa for the pain they will feel as they eye the ballot on election day.

Lets see, we have....

Idiot Number 1- The extreme lunatic.
Idiot Number 2- The gaffe prone snob whom insulted the state by going after one of its most renown industries.

It is rather odd considering the fact that Selzer (widely considered the best in Iowa) shows Ernst up 1 and Quinnipiac shows her up 2. It's not like this is some kind of massive departure from the consensus, unless you really thought she was up 9 like MageLOLan said.

This wasn't included in RCP..... just saying

Because it was done for a liberal group, and was probably skewed a couple points or so in their favor.

This probably shouldn't be in the database, as it's not an independent poll.

Are PPP polls for liberal groups skewed in favor of Ds? I know that PPP polls actually favor Republicans a bit, but not sure if that included internals.

Internals are of course only leaked when they favor the candidate for whom the poll is being conducted.  So it's not that this being an internal skews it Democratic.  It's that there are other internals not being leaked, and they presumably picked one that was good for Braley to leak.  Thus averaging it in with other polls produces a biased result.

Looks like a Braley victory (which is starting to seem like more and more of a strong possibility to me) would be fun times on here.

I don't claim to be an expert on Ernst by any means, but I would be shocked if she exuded Bachmann's amoral disingenuous arrogance and hubris. She seems a more practical down to earth kind of person, no doubt with an overly simplistic view of the world, and probably not very sophisticated, but then Iowa is kind of like that in many ways. I just find it hard to believe that if she were truly a nut case, she would be as competitive as she is, even with Braley's shortcomings.

Oh, I am the one that is Godless, not you. Don't be so hard on yourself!  :)

Sorry Torie... but she's bonkers. It may be delivered in an ever-so-slightly less bonkers package, the message is just as insane.

The fact that Braley might lose to her is an indictment of him.

Perhaps I'm in the minority, but I haven't been and am still not really worried about Braley losing this race. He's been such a terrible candidate and Iowa is so elastic that if he were in any real danger of losing, it would be more evident at this point.

Just curious, what makes Ernest "bonkers?"

If it's solely the abortion issues, reasonable people can differ. It doesn't make those that disagree with myself and presumably you on choice, "bonkers." Their principles are just different. She's entitled to her personhood argument as long as it is philosophically consistent.

If it's more than that, I'd love to hear it.

I love these standards you have for your precious Republicans.  Talk about grading on a curve.

Just because someone doesn't belong in the psych ward doesn't mean we should to elect them to the US Senate.  Honestly, it should be enough that her policies are cuckoo bonkers.  You should really cut an ad for Joni Ernst:

"Some people accuse Joni Ernst of having crazy policies ideas because she's a crazy person.  FACT:  She has never been hospitalized with a mental illness.  Joni Ernst only has crazy ideas because she's a simpleton from a God-damn farm who doesn't know any better.  So vote Ernst this November, her insane ideas are only insane because she's a stupid yokel like you, the Iowan voter."

LOL! Well done Bedstuy.  I have a little feeling in my gut that I might have been "owned" on this one. Oh well, I don't have the time or motivation to try to rehabilitate her here. So I will just accept my "spanking,"  and move on to more favorable venues. Cheers.

What do you make of most of the polls showing Ernst up? Also, the Koch bros. (AFP) appear to be matching the Dems in driving up early votes.

Yeah, you got brutally owned. You should do more research next time, son.

Oh no, someone doesn't stand with you on principle, time to claim they have a mental illness, instead of them not agreeing with you on principle when it comes to your core beliefs.

This country is great because we can debate about things like abolishing the EPA (not a terrible idea to shrink government assuming some functions would be merged into other departments), whether there were WMDs in Iraq (there were, ask the New York Times this week; we can dicker over whether they were "inert" or not), and personhood (reasonable people can see things differently on abortion).

Instead, it's very easy to call someone who leads in Iowa in most polls "crazy" and move on.

Whatever makes you feel good. The intolerance of those with red icons on here though is maddening at times.

You'd never vote for Ernst, fine. We get the point. But to call a candidate "bonkers" and "crazy" because their political beliefs don't match yours, give it a rest.

Setting all those things aside, it should be disturbing to everyone that Ernst called a mass shooting an accident, just to defend guns. How is that a normal thing to say?

Yeah because no candidate ever misspoke. Ever in the history of politics. Politically stupid, yes. Taken out of context, a bit. But evidence of mental illness. No.

I didn't say she was mentally ill. One doesn't have to be clinically insane to say crazy things.

Yes, twist the knife, and then twist it some more. Thanks.

Well, Braley will get "owned" much more brutally in a few weeks, which should be even more fun to watch.

I think you missed my point.  I think if we're dissecting why someone has "eccentric" views on political issues, the part that matters is the bad policy, not whether the candidate is stupid or mentally  ill or whatever.

Personally, I find the far-right wing of the Republican Party radical, extreme and crazy.  Maybe you disagree and that's fine.  But, make no mistake, Joni Ernst is a far right-wing conspiracy theorist candidate.  That might be mainstream in today's Republican Party, but that doesn't legitimize her in any way.  True, she might actually win, I would give her almost a 50% chance of winning.  That's only an indictment of how messed up our political system is in 2014.

I find the far-right and far-left as necessary in the grand scheme of the political process. Differing viewpoints challenge traditional thinking, lead to a healthy debate on the issues and in some events enact positive change for the country.

I hardly would label Ernst as a far right-wing conspiracy theorist. I would not indict Michelle Bachmann as either crazy or evil. They serve their purpose in the political process as much as Alan Greyson and Elizabeth Warren do on the far-left.

It's one thing to call a candidate's policies "crazy" or "bonkers." But to call a candidate with differing beliefs "crazy" because you don't believe in their policies crosses the line.

If you consider losing by a point or two being owned, then maybe.

Certainly losing what you have worked for over the past two years (and probably planned for much longer) and, considering the quality of his campaign, probably losing any chance for a future in elective politics counts as getting owned. Al Franken owned Norm Coleman in 2008, even if it was just by 300 votes.

3 WEEKS TO GO RACE IS TIED OMG ITS OVER ITS OVER ITS OVER ITS OVER CIRLE MY JERK GUYS!

PPP is a great pollster, and I have always believed that this race is going down to the wire, but polls are not actual elections. One poll isn't at all a guarentee that Braley or Ernst will win. The polling worship is hysterical if not so sad.

The Atlas Forum Bubble Mentality dictates extreme exaggeration. So if a good pollster says X, X is undoubtedly true.

And, of course, the Mentality also requires that an even mildly amusing joke must be repeated as nauseam (see: "LOL SURE, SCOTT" regarding Rasmussen Polling).

Well, this certainly is an interesting development, but I'm gonna need more polls than one that's still within the MoE. Again, election night is gonna be rough.

Funnily enough, RCP won't include a PPP poll commissioned by the LCV, but will include a Magellan poll commissioned by the right wing "Keystone Report" website. They're hardly the paragon of objectivity you guys seem to think they are.

If I'm not mistaken, there was a time that RCP didn't enter a poll last cycle, and it was an independent poll that wasn't commissioned by any group (it also showed a Republican trailing). RCP isn't all that trustworthy at times when it comes to entering polls.

Obviously RCP has a Republican bias when it comes to which polls they enter; hence why I find it so amusing when you guys cite performances relative to the RCP Average as a basis for believing Democratic candidates will "overperform the polls"

Well, they tend to stop playing games toward the end so that their results are as accurate as possible.

Each of the last six polls in the RCP database has the race within the MOE. A strong ground game by the Democrats could put Braley over the top. In other words, it's a close race, so I'm not surprised PPP (or any pollster, for that matter) shows a close race. 

They include Rassy, so I don't know why you would say that :P

Nate Silver included this poll in his average, but adjusted it to a tie.

Seems fair.

PPP only has Braley up by 1.  Ouch.  That's not a good sign for him.  I think he's finished guys.

You know PPP had a Republican bias in 2012, right?

I would call Elizabeth Warren center-left.  She's pretty moderate.   But, that's neither here nor there. We can throw around labels all day long, but who really cares? 

When I call Joni Ernst a conspiracy theorist, it's because she believes in the Tea Party's "Agenda 21" conspiracy theory.  When I call her radical, I'm referring to things like shutting down the EPA.  And, I wouldn't want a Democratic conspiracy theorist who was ranting and raving about chemtrails and fluoride either.  I just want smart, informed, rational people in government.  A good example of that from the Iowa Republican Party is Jim Leach, he would have been a reasonable choice.  Joni Ernst is an unreasonable choice.  That's just my take, maybe we drastically disagree on policy and who ought to serve in Congress.

Actually, I'm pretty tired of this excuse. A person in her position advocating a VERY extreme position on reproductive rights that most pro-lifers reject is relevant and to swept aside as... just a difference of principles. Just because personhood is dead as a realistic policy prescription doesn't mean it's not irrelevant as to who is elected as one of the 100 most powerful people in the country.

I don't believe that pro-life people are bonkers, I understand the view. What is worrying is that the concept of 'personhood' isn't about being pro-choice or pro-life... it's about wanting the application of that principle as a policy prescription, and into law. That is a legitimately alarming position.

There's also the nonsense about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, the alarmist and false conspiracy garbage about Agenda 21, wanting to scrap the minimum wage. Have we heard how she feels about water fluoridation?

She's entitled to have those views, however nutty and baseless some of them might be... but when someone is on the cusp of being elevated to such a high and influential office... it can and should matter and cannot be swept aside as being matters of differing principles or opinions.

I really don't want this to become some big abortion debate but can you clarify this point? Are you saying, "I don't care if you're Pro Life...as long as you don't want to do something about it." I see you clearly said, "This isn't about being Pro Choice or Pro Life..." but then you reference "application of that principle as a policy prescription..." Does "that principle" mean Pro Life principles in general or specifically Personhood? Just looking for some clarity.

No no ... personhood.

One thing I'm immensely grateful for is that this issue has been largely put to bed here.

I don't have any interest in debating if Ernst is an extremist or not, but here's what, in my opinion, makes her materially different than Bachmann (and Angle): she isn't running on any of those issues, let alone those positions -in fact, she isn't actively defending most of those positions (again, if she holds them is irrelevant to the issue at hand)- and she has a largely uncontroversial voting record. Moreover, I've noticed a widespread enshrinement of the belief that Braley failed to sink Ernst by painting her as an 'extremist' but, due to the reason pointed above, I think the difficulty of that task is being grossly underestimated.

Summarily, it'd be feasible to paint Ernst as an extremist if she was actually running around claiming Agenda 21 is a conspiracy (and not claiming it's a very gloomy and bad thing, at first; and a non-issue later), that Obama should be impeached under current circumstances (and not if the SCOTUS ruled an abuse of power), that abortion should be illegal in all cases and women persecuted (and not parroting the "pro-life with exceptions but only persecute the provider" line), that there Iraq had an active program of WMD at the moment of the invasion (and not ""We don't know that there were weapons on the ground when we went in, however, I do have reason to believe there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq", later 'clarified'/downplayed to "I did not mean to suggest that Iraq had WMD at the time of invasion. It is clear they did not. What I was trying to say was that Iraq had had WMD in their past, and had even used them. My point was that we don't know exactly what happened to those weapons.") and so on.

However, besides not focusing on those issues, as soon as she says something dubious enough to be seen as controversial (and most of those statements can be better classified as ambiguous, creating the potential to controversy, than openly polemical), she immediately retracts to some bland and non-committal position. That's radically different from, to use your threhsold, Bachmann's modus operandi - Bachmann would double down on her polemical views, focus public interventions on controversial issues and be tone-deaf about her audience (like rambling about fluoridation or vaccines or whatever it was during presidential primary debate on national tv and then sticking to it). That combination of clarity and consistency (and, to some extent, tone) is necessary to build credibility to the claim of extremism (in the sense of selling it to the average voter) - and ideally there's a voting record to finish the case. Ambiguous, disconnected, statements that are quickly retracted/clarified, aren't helped by a scary voting record and are relative to underlying issues which aren't either pushed or promoted by the candidate or seen as important by the electorate, don't do the job.

Ernst might be an extremist or not, but, assuming she is, she doesn't behave like one to the point of allowing an opponent to easily convince the voters of that fact. Braley is being blamed for not preparing an omelet when he wasn't given enough eggs.

A propos, I think both Barley and Ernst are incredibly underrated as candidates by the CW (the one from this board, from inside the beltway, etc). After millions of dollars spent on negative advertising and an abundance of negative free press from both sides, Iowans seem quite content with their candidates: Ernst favorables in the last 4 polls (Suffolk, Quinn, Selzer, Ras) are +7, +6, +4, +5, Braley is a bit lower but still basically even : -2, -2, -1, +1; polls suggest, and early voting seems to validate, very high enthusiasm levels and the libertarian candidate, may he rest in peace, wasn't gaining any traction, unlike what one can see in races with unpopular major party candidates like FL-Gov and NC-Sen.

Dominating!

Braley will win, as he was expected to do from the beginning of this race.

When will KCDem be banned?

What's not a good sign for Braley is that this was released by a left-wing group, which means they have not had any better results for Braley than up 1; while there've been plenty of polls showing Ernst up 2-4 points. The volume and nature of polling here is sufficient to say that Ernst is up in the very low single digits (even though for a single poll with such a result is within the margin of error, it's not the case when you have a bunch). Consider that in Colorado, where Gardner is actually polling slightly better than Ernst, Democrats have managed to release two internals showing Udall up three (though, tbf, from less reputable sources than PPP).


There've always been hacks who join right before an election, and they always leave right afterwards, even if their party does do well. If nothing is done to permanent hacks (and we all tolerate Dr. Scholl and Krazen and whatnot) it doesn't seem to make sense to go after KCDem and his ilk.

Elections are the ultimate arbitrator as to whether ideas are too far out of the mainstream as far as I am concerned. It's up to the people of Iowa to determine whether Ernst's ideas are "nutty."

I have no problem with her views on WMD. They have been partially validated by the NYT article earlier this week.

Likewise, I think a few departments should be shut down and consolidated into others. The size of the government should be reduced and duplicative services over multiple departments eliminated.  Kind of like how they do things in business. Trim the upper and middle-manager fat. You don't need Homeland Security,  the DoJ, the DoD and State, for example.

Is that "nutty?" I think not.

Again... that's very flighty. "Elections are the ultimate arbiters..." Well, no - the Salem witch-trials were nutty, but because a big swathe of the population supported them at the time means that they aren't?

The article doesn't validate the WMD points at all... they weren't an active stockpile and were remnants from Saddam's weapons program from the Iran-Iraq War and the "conflict" with the Kurds. Everyone knew he had weapons from the 80s.

Revisionist history. Saddam was under orders to destroy his WMD stockpile. He didn't. Let's not forget that.  He was actively deceiving the UN.

Of course elections ultimately decide who is a suitable representative for that jurisdiction. As long as you are eligible to run for office, you have a right to run. The voters determine if your views are suitable for them or not. It's not my place to put my personal opinions in place of said voters.

...I think we're not really going anywhere with this.