IA-Quinnipiac: D: Clinton 52% Sanders 33%; R: Walker 18% Carson 10% Trump 10%

[eric82oslo]

Bush, Kasich and Christie should all be very worried with these numbers. These three candidates together have only 11% in the poll versus 10% for Trump alone. On the other hand, shockingly/surprisingly, the past two Iowa winners, Huckabee and Santorum, are both doing horribly as well.

Walker, Carson and Rubio have all very low negatives and very high positives in Iowa. Cruz is doing really well there as well.

[eric82oslo]

Sanders need to win both Iowa and New Hampshire in order to become a serious threat to Clinton, and even with two such early wins, he will still not turn into the frontrunner. However, were he to win South Carolina as well, that would change. Then he would probably be regarded as a slight frontrunner, though still ever so slight. If he were to win all the four early states however...then Hillary would be in serious trouble. Hillary simply can't afford to lose all four.

[eric82oslo]

I think that's quite absurd. If Sanders wins Iowa and leads in New Hampshire, then he becomes the front-runner, let alone a serious threat. I would say he's already a serious threat to her.

Disagree strongly. Hillary is still regarded as the strongest frontrunner in modern history. Very much will have to change for her frontrunner status to evaporate completely. Also Sanders is regarded by almost everyone who is not a Sanders groupie themself as close to 100% unelectable. That fact won't change (much, if any) even if he were to win both Iowa and New Hampshire.

Sanders is almost as unelectable as Trump or Ted Cruz in fact.

[eric82oslo]

Beet I like you but you get worried way too easily. Clinton will give Sanders a good thrashing in the debates, win Iowa by 30% and that'll be that.

Except she's a horrible debater and Bernie will be able to set the tone and direction of the debate because he can stake out positions she cannot. She's only going to drop more in the early state polls.

She proved in 2008 that she was an excellent debater. She was as good as Obama, sometimes even better than him.