Poll: Sanders leads field in Iowa

[JoeOtterbein]

Politico

By STEVEN SHEPARD

01/25/2020 07:27 AM EST

Sen. Bernie Sanders leads the field of Democratic presidential candidates in Iowa, according to a new poll released Saturday.

The New York Times Upshot/Siena College survey shows one-in-four likely Democratic caucus-goers, 25 percent, pick Sanders as their first choice in next month’s caucuses.

That gives Sanders a 7-point lead over his closest competitor, former South Bend (Ind.) Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who is at 18 percent, roughly tied for second place with former Vice President Joe Biden at 17 percent and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts at 14 percent. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota is in fifth place, at 8 percent, the only other candidate above the low single digits.

The survey, which was conducted this past Monday through Thursday and released just nine days before the caucuses, highlights the pressure on Sanders’ rivals, who have seen the independent senator from Vermont surge in the weeks leading up to the first votes of the Democratic nominating process. A Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom poll released two weeks ago also showed Sanders with a single-digit advantage in the caucuses, though Biden has led in other surveys released since that.

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more at link

[karynnj]

1. The NYT/Siena polls have been outliers in GENERAL ELECTION polls in many states

The NYT daily podcast covered their polling and how they tried to learn from 2016. What they changed was the likelihood of voting model because in many swing states their explanation of why they "were wrong" was that they under represented the white non college educated white males. However, this year will have energy on both sides - so it may be that not only will more non college educates whites will vote, but more POC, young people etc will vote. (Consider that young people voted at the lowest rate - therefore they have the most potential to gain.

I am not saying that Bernie is not gaining - many polls show that he is. However, this poll is much higher than the average of the others to this point. It could just be the first poll showing new gains or it could reflect the different model used to reflect who will actually vote.

In some ways, this may be the first test of their rebalancing that others are not doing. That will be important - not just because it is likely to show Bernie Sanders doing better, but it will mean that we need to be more concerned about the scary general election results.

[Thekaspervote]

2. This! The poll averages are always best. Individual polls are just that. One poll

[karynnj]

4. I would usually agree with that, but as the NYT has addressed what they are doing differently that

might not be the case here.

The problem is that while the average of many polls - all using statistical sampling would be a better estimator of what is really happening than any individual poll, these polls are not just statistical samples. They also all include some heuristic model that weights observations by the likeliness that they will actually vote.

This year, the NYT has explicitly said they changed their model. My personal thought is that the new model is a case of expecting the future election to be just like the last one. It may well be that they are correct that they underrepresented that category in 2016. However, is it possible that they are now underweighting everyone angered by the Trump administration.

[highplainsdem]

3. The same poll has Sanders losing to Trump by the widest margin of any Dem candidate except Bloomberg

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287445446