Representative Steve King endorsed Senator Ted Cruz for president a few minutes ago, calling the senator from Texas “the answer to my prayers, a candidate God will use to restore the soul of America.” After going through several key issues, including the need to stop President Barack Obama’s executive actions on immigration and to repeal “root and branch” the 2010 Affordable Care Act, King said his candidate would need to be committed to those policies. In addition, King said a successful candidate needs to be able to appeal not only to establishment Republicans, but also to “constitutional Christian conservatives” and libertarians. The candidate must be able to raise enough money to run a strong campaign, and must be able to inspire Christian conservatives for a large turnout. In King’s view, one reason Republicans lost the 2012 presidential race was millions of Christian conservatives staying home.

King argued that Cruz is “unmatched in his tenacity to take on the Washington cartels” and has “consistently stood on principle” against the D.C. elites. He “does listen, and he does think.” Asked how much he will do to support Cruz before the Iowa caucuses, King joked that “if they’ll let me,” he is prepared to hit the campaign trail, adding, “I’m in with both feet, I’m in all the way.” Asked to sum up his reasoning in one sentence, King said, “Ted Cruz is the full package, the constitutional conservative that can restore the soul of America.”

King didn’t endorse a candidate before the 2012 Iowa caucuses, and didn’t take a stand the previous cycle until shortly before the 2008 caucuses, when he endorsed Fred Thompson. I suspect that coming out so early for Cruz reflects King’s concern about Donald Trump’s and Ben Carson’s long ride at the top of the Iowa and national polls. During the Q & A, King said he hopes his endorsement will add “clarity” to Cruz’s position on immigration, and asserted that some others are trying to distort Cruz’s stance on that issue. When a reporter asked King why he doesn’t see Carson as a candidate who can restore the soul of America, King praised Carson’s intellect but suggested that Washington, DC is not “a zone that he is familiar with.” Later in the Q & A, King made a similar point about Trump–he doesn’t know enough about how Washington works. He made clear that he would support Trump if he became the GOP nominee and said he appreciated that Trump has raised some of the issues King has worked on for a long time.

UPDATE: Added below some reaction to today’s news and the official video of King endorsing Cruz, which the senator’s campaign sent out a few minutes before King made the big reveal at his press conference. One of the pro-Cruz super-PACs also announced King’s endorsement before the congressman did.

The second Democratic presidential debate kicks off in a few minutes at Drake University’s Sheslow Auditorium. Why Democratic National Committee leaders scheduled this event on a Saturday night is beyond me; but then, their whole approach to debates this year has been idiotic. I wonder how many politically-engaged Iowans who would normally tune in for a debate will watch the Iowa Hawkeyes football game against Minnesota tonight.

I’m not a fan of curtain-raisers such as lists of “things to watch for” or mistakes candidates might make. I will update this post later with thoughts on each contender’s performance.

Any comments about tonight’s debate or the Democratic presidential race generally are welcome in this thread. I enclose below the latest commercials Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have been running in Iowa. The new 30-second Sanders spot mostly uses images and phrases pulled from his strong introductory commercial. Clinton’s ad-maker this year is putting out much better material than I remember from her 2007 Iowa caucus campaign. To my knowledge, Martin O’Malley has not aired any television commercials in Iowa yet, but the Generation Forward super-PAC has run at least one spot promoting his candidacy, which Bleeding Heartland posted here.

UPDATE: My first take on the debate is after the jump.

A poll in the field this week is measuring Iowans’ views of the University of Iowa and whether certain changes would increase the perceived value of a degree from the university. The phrases enclosed below reflect what one respondent was able to recall from the survey, which lasted approximately 15 minutes.

I hope to update this post with much more detail about the question wording. If you receive this call (or any message-testing poll), please take notes and send them to the e-mail address at the bottom right of the Bleeding Heartland front page.

The survey included at least one question about the performance of the University of Iowa’s new president, Bruce Harreld. In interviews with Iowa Public Television and Iowa Public Radio today, Harreld said he has been “building trust” by meeting with as many stakeholders on campus as possible. He also endorsed a plan to seek more state funding for the university next year. Jeff Charis-Carlson reported for the Iowa City Press-Citizen on November 6 that the “faculty vitality” proposal would provide $4.5 million for recruiting new faculty and increasing salaries of tenure-track faculty during the 2017 fiscal year. Iowa Board of Regents President Bruce Rastetter orchestrated adding $4.5 million to the budget request for the University of Iowa a few days after the regents hired Harreld. The move was widely perceived as an effort to placate those who disapproved of the hiring before a scheduled meeting of the Faculty Senate. Iowa Public Television’s “Iowa Press” program will broadcast the full episode with Harreld this Friday and Sunday.

Hillary Clinton has gained ground in polls of Iowa Democrats since the first debate on October 13 and her marathon questioning by a hostile U.S. House select committee on October 22. The four most recent surveys here, all released in the last two weeks, put her ahead of Bernie Sanders by disparate margins. I enclose below highlights from polls released by Loras College, Monmouth College, Monmouth University, and Public Policy Polling, which has the newest Iowa poll out.

The big question is which pollster, if any, has a handle on distinguishing likely caucus-goers from others who will pick up the phone for an unknown number and agree to take a survey. Clinton leads by 14 points in Monmouth College/KBUR/Douglas Fulmer & Associates but by 32 points in Public Policy Polling and by a very-hard-to-believe 41 points in Monmouth University. One or more of those polls has to be off by much more than the mathematical margin of error, which assumes a respondent pool that perfectly represents the target population.

How many Iowans will come to their Democratic precinct caucuses on February 1 is anyone’s guess. No one seems to expect turnout close to the record-shattering level of nearly 240,000 in January 2008. If it’s much lower than that, who benefits: Clinton, by virtue of a superior campaign organization, or Sanders, whose supporters appear to be much more excited about their candidate? Former Senator Tom Harkin, who is backing Clinton, told the New York Times after the Iowa Democratic Party’s Jefferson-Jackson dinner, “This is not a slam dunk for her,” citing the tremendous enthusiasm for Sanders. With just a fraction of the mainstream media coverage Obama was receiving at similar stages of the campaign in 2007, Sanders has been drawing huge crowds in Iowa. His campaign is just starting to draw explicit contrasts with Clinton and only began running television commercials this week.

On a related note, Shane Goldmacher reports for Politico today on speculation about turnout for the 2016 Republican caucuses. Some Iowa GOP insiders predict 150,000 caucus-goers or more, while others think turnout will be only slightly higher than the record of 121,501, set in 2012. Bleeding Heartland will cover the latest Republican polling in Iowa in a future post; Ben Carson has led in most surveys conducted during the past month.

Two new polls of Iowa Republicans show Dr. Ben Carson has taken the lead from Donald Trump. Selzer & Co’s latest survey for the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg Politics shows Carson is the first choice of 28 percent of likely Republican caucus-goers, followed by Trump at 19 percent, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (10 percent), U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (9 percent), former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and U.S. Senator Rand Paul (5 percent each), business executive Carly Fiorina (4 percent), former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee (3 percent), Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, Ohio Governor John Kasich, and former Senator Rick Santorum (2 percent each), New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (1 percent), and the rest of the field below 1 percent.

Similarly, Quinnipiac’s latest poll of likely Republican caucus-goers found Carson ahead of Trump by 28 percent to 20 percent, followed by Rubio (13 percent), Cruz (10 percent), Paul (6 percent), Fiorina and Bush (5 percent each), and no one else above 3 percent.

Carson is the best-liked candidate among those likely to participate in the Iowa GOP caucuses. Both the Selzer and Quinnipiac surveys found that 84 percent of respondents view him favorably. I’ve posted more excerpts from the poll write-ups after the jump.

Carson is crushing the competition among social conservatives, an important bloc that tends to break late in Iowa caucus campaigns, as Bleeding Heartland guest author fladem discussed here. He has invested heavily in direct mail and leaving copies of his paperback books on Iowa Republican doorsteps, while generally escaping scrutiny from his competitors.

At some point, other candidates who are appealing primarily to the religious right must recognize that their path to relevance in Iowa runs through Carson. Only 22 percent of Selzer poll respondents said their minds are made up; 78 percent could change their minds. I’m curious to see when 2008 winner Huckabee, 2012 winner Santorum, and/or Jindal will start making a case against the surgeon. To be stuck in the cellar after spending substantially more time in Iowa than Carson must be so frustrating.

Cruz may also need to give Iowans a reason not to support Carson. Perhaps some of his Christian conservative surrogates could take on that role. “Opinion leaders” backing Cruz include numerous evangelical clergy, talk radio host Steve Deace, and Dick and Betty Odgaard, the self-styled martyrs to marriage equality in Iowa.

UPDATE: I should have mentioned that Nick Ryan, who led the 501(c)4 group American Future Fund for several election cycles and headed the pro-Santorum super-PAC during the 2012 primaries, signed on earlier this year to lead a super-PAC supporting Huckabee. It might make more sense for that group to go after Carson than for Huckabee to do so directly. Still, the next GOP debate on October 28 would be a good opportunity for rivals to score points against the new Iowa front-runner.

Hillary Clinton leads Bernie Sanders as the first choice of likely Iowa Democratic caucus-goers by 48 percent to 41 percent, with all other candidates far behind, according to a new poll by Selzer & Co. for the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg Politics. Jennifer Jacobs reported the main findings in today’s Des Moines Register. Since the poll was in the field before Vice President Joe Biden ruled out running for president again, the Register reallocated Biden’s supporters to their named second-choice candidate. Selzer’s previous Iowa poll showed Clinton ahead of Sanders by 37 percent to 30 percent with Biden in the field and by 43 percent to 35 percent without Biden as an option.

After the jump I’ve posted excerpts from Jacobs’ report, focusing on weak points for Clinton and Sanders.

Just 2 percent of respondents named Martin O’Malley as their first choice in the Register’s latest poll, behind “not sure” at 4 percent and “uncommitted” at 3 percent. Bleeding Heartland has a post in progress with my hypothesis on why O’Malley is getting no traction in Iowa, despite doing all the right things in terms of organizing and retail politics. Every time I’ve seen the former Maryland governor campaign here this year, audiences have responded favorably to his stump speech. I usually hear good feedback from other Democrats who have attended his events too, but it’s not translating into enough people signing supporter cards. Unfortunately for O’Malley, both Clinton and Sanders performed very well in last week’s debate, which drew record viewership for a debate featuring Democratic presidential candidates.

Jim Webb made the right choice to drop out of the race; the Register’s new poll showed him tied with Lincoln Chafee at 1 percent. Yesterday, Webb tweeted that it’s time for this country to “fix” the criminal justice system. I hope he will become heavily engaged in criminal justice reform efforts at the federal and state levels, instead of pouring his energy into an independent presidential bid.

The most shocking finding in the the Register’s latest poll: Iowa Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement is “good for Iowa.” Among likely Democratic caucus-goers, 39 percent said the TPP deal is good for Iowa, 27 percent said bad for Iowa, and 34 percent were unsure. Among likely Republican caucus-goers, just 27 percent said TPP was good for Iowa, 30 percent said bad for Iowa, and 42 percent were unsure. For decades, the Iowa business community and in particular representatives of Big Ag have spun “free trade” agreements as good for this state, so I would have expected much stronger support for TPP among Republicans.

UPDATE: Quinnipiac released a new Iowa poll on October 23 showing Clinton leading Sanders by 51 percent to 40 percent, with O’Malley at 4 percent. I enclosed below excerpts from the polling memo. Last month’s Quinnipiac poll of likely Democratic caucus-goers showed Sanders at 41 percent and Clinton at 40 percent.

A new poll is in the field testing numerous statements designed to convince Iowa Democrats to caucus for Bernie Sanders rather than for Hillary Clinton. I received the call last night and enclose my notes below. If you were a respondent for the same survey and can provide additional details, please post a comment in this thread or contact me via e-mail (the address is near the lower right corner of this page).

My best guess is that an outside group wanting to boost Sanders commissioned the poll. The questionnaire did not include any negative statements about the senator from Vermont. If the Sanders campaign were designing a poll like this, I think they would have tested a few arguments against supporting the candidate, to identify his possible weak points. An outside group planning to produce direct mail or paid advertising to influence Iowa Democrats wouldn’t need that information. They would only be interested in the best way to discourage people from caucusing for Clinton and/or encourage them to caucus for Sanders.

Although Sanders doesn’t have a super-PAC promoting his campaign, progressive advocacy groups that want him to become president may make independent expenditures supporting him. Note that the survey asked respondents whether they had a favorable or unfavorable opinion of the environmental group Friends of the Earth; no other non-profit organizations were mentioned in the questionnaire. Friends of the Earth endorsed Sanders this summer and would presumably be interested in knowing how well they are known/liked among early state Democrats.

It’s also possible that a conservative organization would commission a poll like this, hoping to hurt Clinton in the early nominating states.

Steven Shepard broke big news this week for political junkies: Gallup “isn’t planning any polls for the presidential primary horse race this cycle” and “won’t commit to tracking the general election next year.” Gallup editor-in-chief Frank Newport explained the decision “to put our time and money and brainpower into understanding the issues and priorities” of voters, rather than merely which candidate they prefer. Speaking to Harry Enten of FiveThirtyEight.com, Newport said “he wants to contribute to making the ‘government process work better’ and that he thinks issue polling can do that better than horse-race polling.”

Enten thinks it “sucks” that Gallup “gave up” on measuring the horse race, because despite problems with Gallup’s 2010 and 2012 election surveys, the firm uses “rigorous polling methodologies,” in contrast to some shady operators. Moreover, without horse-race polls to compare against election results, we won’t be able to judge the accuracy of Gallup’s issue-based polling, in Enten’s view.

Newport insists that Gallup’s decision is not about lack of faith in its polls’ accuracy.

Our decision is one of allocation of resources. In the 2012 cycle we invested a huge amount of time, money, and interviewing in tracking the horse race on a nightly basis.

Our question in this cycle:  is this the best investment of resources to fulfill the mission of helping understand what is going on in a presidential election and hopefully helping make the nation better off as a result.  Our thinking is that it is not; that tilting those resources more toward understanding where the public stands on the issues of the day, how they are reacting to the proposals put forth by the candidates, what it is they want the candidates to do, and what messages or images of the candidates are seeping into the public’s consciousness can make a more lasting contribution.

This may not be the focus that gets the most ‘clicks’ or short-term headlines, but is one which hopefully can make a real difference.  

Amen to that. Steve Koczela reported for Commonwealth magazine that the Pew Research Center will also do less horse-race polling during the 2016 election cycle.

At least since the 1970s, media critics have bemoaned the excessive focus on the horse race in political reporting. A major theme of Robert Entman’s 1989 book Democracy Without Citizens was the harm done by covering politics like a game, rather than informing voters about substantive outcomes from government actions. A new poll coming out nearly every day tends to drive news reporting and analysis toward who’s up and who’s down. That happens to be easier than discussing policies, “which would require journalists having to actually read legislation and analyse its implications.” I celebrate Gallup’s choice to get off the tracking poll treadmill.

It’s been a while since Bleeding Heartland had a discussion thread about the Democratic caucus campaign. After the jump I’ve posted highlights from the latest opinion polls of Iowa Democrats and other links on campaign infrastructure and strategies. Whether Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders is building a stronger Iowa organization so far is an open question.

Any comments about the caucuses are welcome in this thread.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker will end his presidential campaign today, the New York Times reported. The onetime leader in Iowa and national polling has been sinking for months and dropped to low single digits in national surveys following the first two Republican debates. Although Walker racked up a bunch of early Iowa endorsements in the winter and spring, I always felt he might retrace the path of Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, who quit the race four years ago after a disappointing Ames Straw Poll showing.

Part of me feels this humiliating end to a once-promising campaign couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. But the other part of me is worried, because Walker was running an incompetent campaign, and his exit means some more competent candidate may end up becoming the consensus establishment choice: perhaps Carly Fiorina, Senator Marco Rubio, or my worst fear for the general election, Ohio Governor John Kasich.

Any comments about the Republican presidential race are welcome in this thread. I will update this post later with reaction to Walker’s decision.

UPDATE: Ryan Foley points out that Walker quit the GOP primary race for Wisconsin governor early before the 2006 campaign, “a move that endeared him to the faithful and helped pave [the] way for [his] later rise.” The GOP has nominated failed candidates before (Bob Dole, John McCain, Mitt Romney), though Rick Perry’s experience shows second chances aren’t a given for one-touted candidates who under-performed.

Further updates are after the jump, including highlights from Walker’s press conference and the list of high-profile Iowa endorsers his campaign rolled out in August. They include nine current state senators and six state representatives, some of whom came on board with Walker much earlier in the year.

Outsiders reign supreme in Quinnipiac’s latest poll of “likely Republican Caucus participants” in Iowa. Click here for the polling memo and full results. After the jump I’ve posted a couple of tables from the release.

Donald Trump is the first choice of 27 percent of participants, with Ben Carson not far behind at 21 percent. Carson leads among self-identified “born-again evangelicals” in the respondent pool. Among all respondents, Ted Cruz places a distant third at 9 percent, followed by Jeb Bush (6 percent), Carly Fiorina, John Kasich, and Marco Rubio (5 percent each), Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee, and don’t know/not answer (4 percent each).

Just a couple of months ago, Scott Walker led Quinnipiac’s Iowa poll with 18 percent support. The latest survey puts him in tenth place with 3 percent.

Adding today’s data to findings from other recent surveys, I believe we can answer the question Bleeding Heartland posed about the Wisconsin governor in March. Despite getting a decent head start here, Walker is looking like the second coming of Tim Pawlenty.

Any comments about the Republican presidential race are welcome in this thread.

Quinnipiac is out with a new poll showing 41 percent of likely Iowa Democratic caucus-goers favor Bernie Sanders, to 40 percent for Hillary Clinton, 12 percent for Joe Biden, 3 percent each for Martin O’Malley and undecided, 1 percent for Jim Webb, and less than 1 percent for Lincoln Chafee. Although several polling firms have shown Sanders ahead in New Hampshire, no previous survey has found him closer than 7 points behind Clinton in Iowa.

Quinnipiac’s poll surveyed 832 “likely Iowa Democratic Caucus participants” between August 27 and September 8, producing a statistical margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percent. Other Iowa polls in the field either during that window or a few days before it found Clinton leads ranging from 7 points (Selzer & Co’s survey for the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg Politics) to 11 points (NBC/Marist) to 25 points (Loras College) to 28 points (a Gravis Marketing survey that inexplicably included Elizabeth Warren).

Click here for the Quinnipiac polling memo and full results with questionnaire. The survey found “a wide gender gap among Democrats today as Sanders leads Clinton 49 – 28 percent among men, with 16 percent for Biden, while Clinton leads Sanders 49 – 35 percent among women, with 9 percent for Biden.” Clinton’s favorability rating of 76 percent is comparable to Sanders’ 78 percent and Biden’s 79 percent, but her unfavorable rating of 20 percent is much higher than that of Sanders or Biden (6 percent and 9 percent, respectively). Respondents rated Clinton higher for leadership qualities and “the right kind of temperament and personality to handle an international crisis as president.”

The Quinnipiac Poll’s assistant director Peter A. Brown compared Sanders to 1968 anti-war candidate Eugene McCarthy, because he is “the candidate of the Democratic left, against his own party’s bosses and their prized presidential candidate […] Sanders has seized the momentum by offering a message more in line with disproportionately liberal primary and caucus voters.”

Happy Labor Day weekend to the Bleeding Heartland community! This is an open thread: all topics welcome. Click here for a brief history of the holiday.

For those wanting to enjoy the outdoors during the unofficial last weekend of summer, you may find some inspiration in the Iowa Department of Natural Resources’ list of fourteen “incredible hikes in our state parks and forests,” here and here. I’m embarrassed by how few of those parks I have visited, but I can highly recommend the walking trails at the Ledges and Dolliver Memorial State Parks.

Three more polling firms have released new Iowa caucus surveys since last weekend’s Selzer poll for the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg news. Highlights are after the jump. All recent polls put Donald Trump and Ben Carson well ahead of the rest of the Republican field in Iowa. Bernie Sanders has clearly gained some ground on Hillary Clinton, but other polls have found a larger lead for the Democratic front-runner here than Selzer did.

Eric Boehlert was quick to criticize the media for giving Selzer’s poll of Iowa Democrats such big play last weekend, even though it looks like an “outlier” in his view. I take his point, but the last time I said a Selzer poll appeared to be an outlier, I had to eat my words.

Before I get to the polls below, here’s one for the “campaigns don’t matter” crowd, who believe economic conditions largely decide presidential elections. The Moody’s Analytics model “now predicts a Democratic electoral landslide in the 2016 presidential vote,” with 326 electoral votes for the Democratic nominee and 212 to the Republican. Click through for more information on the Moody’s methodology.

Selzer & Co’s new survey of Iowa Republicans for the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg News gives GOP strategists plenty to worry about.

The top three “outsider” candidates (Donald Trump, Ben Carson, and Ted Cruz) are the first choice for 49 percent of respondents. The top three “establishment” candidates (Scott Walker, Jeb Bush, and Marco Rubio) are the first choice for only 20 percent.

The survey also indicates that several candidates considered heavyweight contenders are yesterday’s news for likely GOP caucus-goers. The 2008 caucus winner Mike Huckabee is sitting at 4 percent, tied with Rand Paul, who had been expected to inherit much of his father’s support from the last election campaign. The 2012 winner Rick Santorum is at 1 percent.

The Des Moines Register’s Jennifer Jacobs wrote up the key findings here, with input from Jason Noble. My first thoughts about the numbers are after the jump.

Hillary Clinton has a real fight on her hands in Iowa, according to the latest poll by Selzer & Co for the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg News. Among 404 likely Democratic caucus-goers surveyed between August 23 and 26, Clinton is the first choice of 37 percent, followed by Bernie Sanders (30 percent), Joe Biden (14 percent), “not sure” (8 percent), “uncommitted” (6 percent), Martin O’Malley (3 percent), Jim Webb (2 percent), and Lincoln Chafee (1 percent. The poll’s margin of error is plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.

When respondents did not have the option of selecting Biden, Clinton was the first choice of 43 percent of respondents, while 35 percent picked Sanders.

The Selzer poll will worry the front-runner’s campaign, especially since two surveys of New Hampshire Democrats have now shown Sanders leading Clinton in the first primary state. Notably, Selzer found Sanders way ahead among caucus-goers under age 45 (50 percent to 27 percent), among first-time caucus-goers (43 percent to 31 percent), and among independents likely to participate in the Democratic caucuses (a 21-point lead, but I don’t see the numbers in the write-up by Jennifer Jacobs). Caucus-goers who are “feeling the Bern” are not driven by “anyone but Hillary” sentiment. Some 96 percent of respondents backing Sanders are doing so “mostly because [they] support him and his ideas”; just 2 percent said Sanders is their first choice mostly because they do not support Clinton.

The poll is horrendous news for O’Malley, who has worked his heart out campaigning in Iowa. Since 2013, he has visited the state fifteen times, spending all or part of 29 days here. Every time I’ve seen O’Malley in person, his stump speech has been well-received, but Sanders seized the progressive/liberal niche early. I don’t see a path for O’Malley to become viable in most of the state’s precincts. While he has been filling small and medium-sized venues, Sanders has been drawing ridiculously large crowds all over the state, most recently at the Des Moines Register’s Iowa State Fair soapbox. At events where there is no externally-imposed time limit, Sanders keeps the crowd’s attention for over an hour, not counting time he spends answering questions.

I will update this post as the Register publishes more data from the new survey. A separate post will cover the latest Selzer poll findings on Republican presidential candidates in Iowa.

No Iowa teenagers have ever made a more important political statement than siblings John and Mary Beth Tinker, who refused to remove anti-war black armbands and took their fight for freedom of expression in Des Moines public schools all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

As for political pranks, it will be hard for anyone to top Brady Olson of Wallingford (Emmet County), who established a presidential campaign for his alter ego “Deez Nuts” and helped it go viral.  

Since late July, Vice President Joe Biden and his advisers have been touching base with Democrats about a possible presidential run. While on vacation this week, Biden has reportedly been “calling old friends and potential allies to discuss the possibilities and problems of jumping into the Democratic presidential race.” A recent Gallup poll of Democrats and independents who lean Democratic found that 45 percent want Biden to run for president, while 47 percent do not. Even as a non-candidate, Biden is averaging about 11 percent in national polls of Democrats.

Writing in USA Today, Susan Page explained why Biden could be a fallback for establishment Democrats “who are uneasy about Hillary Clinton” because of continuing controversy over her use of e-mail as secretary of state. Strategist Joe Trippi told Page that a Biden campaign “would completely alter the Democratic primary fight,” splitting the establishment vote and giving Bernie Sanders a big boost.

It’s hard for me to imagine Biden beating Clinton in the primaries. Nor do I see the e-mail scandals causing her candidacy to “implode,” as Chris Matthews suggested yesterday on MSNBC’s Hardball. That doesn’t mean Biden won’t roll the dice on getting his name on the ballot, just in case. A presidential campaign can be exhausting even under the best of circumstances, and I can’t imagine keeping up that kind of schedule while coping with a devastating bereavement. But Biden loves public speaking and working a room, so he might find some solace in running for president again. Iowa Democrats are generally fond of Biden and would welcome his presence here, even if they were sticking with other candidates.

Former Senator Tom Harkin endorsed Clinton late last week and spent much of Saturday with her at the Iowa State Fair. Many observers suggested the patriarch of Iowa Democrats weighed in at this time to send Biden a signal. Yesterday Harkin told MSNBC that Clinton is “doing everything right,” meeting voters in person and running a great campaign organization. Harkin also asserted that as he gets around Iowa, “people here are not talking about those e-mails. I don’t get where this is coming from.” Harkin added, “What this calls for right now is Hillary Clinton, it’s time for a woman – it’s past time, as a matter of fact – for a woman president.” Asked specifically whether Biden will run for president, Harkin suggested the Democratic presidential field is “set.” Click here to watch the whole interview.

This thread is for any scenario spinning about Biden’s plans or the Democratic presidential campaigns. After the jump I’ve enclosed excerpts from Harkin’s op-ed for the Des Moines Register explaining why he supports Clinton.

Iraq War veteran Jim Mowrer, the 2014 Democratic challenger to Representative Steve King in Iowa’s fourth district, announced this morning that he is running for Congress in Iowa’s third district. Earlier this year, Mowrer moved his family from Boone to Des Moines. I’ve enclosed his campaign’s statement after the jump, which lists 19 endorsers. Five are state legislators (two representing districts in IA-03), and five lead Democratic Party committees in IA-03 counties.

Speaking to Jennifer Jacobs of the Des Moines Register, Mowrer said he started thinking about running for Congress again a few months ago, when “a good friend” (Beau Biden) died: “That was another reminder of how fleeting life can be and we need to take action to change our world while we have the opportunity to do so.” Mowrer has known the Biden family for a long time; he chaired the Iowa veterans committee backing Joe Biden for president before the 2008 caucuses.

Earlier this year, Mowrer ran for Iowa Democratic Party state chair and was elected first vice chair. He confirmed to Bleeding Heartland that he resigned from that position this morning.

At this writing, Mowrer’s campaign website Jim for Iowa consists of a landing page, a volunteer sign-up form, a contribution button, and a link to the candidate’s biography. I assume issue positions and other information will be added soon. Mowrer is on Facebook here and on Twitter here.

Mowrer raised an impressive amount of money for his 2014 campaign against King, more than $2.1 million. So he starts this effort with an unusually large e-mail list of supporters and contributors. He may not match his 2014 fundraising levels, since IA-03 GOP incumbent David Young is neither as well-known as King, nor hated by Democrats across the country. But Mowrer will surely raise enough money to run a competitive district-wide race.

Mowrer will have at least one rival in the Democratic primary: Desmund Adams. State Senator Matt McCoy took himself out of the running last week. Simone Pathe reported for Roll Call on August 14 that some Democrats are recruiting U.S. Attorney Nick Klinefeldt to run in IA-03, and that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee included both Klinefelt and Mowrer in a recent poll. According to Pathe, that poll did not test former Governor Chet Culver, who said earlier this year that he was thinking about running for Congress. I don’t know any local Democrats who expect Culver to get in to this race at this point.

The latest figures from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office indicate that the sixteen counties in IA-03 contain 150,997 active registered Democrats, 163,107 Republicans, and 163,172 no-party voters.

That’s not a rhetorical question. I really want to know: why would anyone believe Donald Trump could be elected president?

Public Policy Polling released its latest Iowa caucus numbers yesterday. As other recent surveys of Iowa Democrats have shown, Hillary Clinton still leads by a considerable margin, but her lead has shrunk since the spring, as Iowans have learned more about other contenders. PPP now has Clinton at 52 percent support among “usual Democratic primary voters,” while Bernie Sanders has 25 percent, Martin O’Malley 7 percent, Jim Webb 3 percent, and Lincoln Chafee 1 percent.

On the GOP side, Donald Trump leads among “usual Republican primary voters” with 19 percent, followed by Ben Carson and Scott Walker (12 percent each), Jeb Bush (11 percent), Carly Fiorina (10 percent), Ted Cruz (9 percent), Mike Huckabee and Marco Rubio (6 percent each), John Kasich and Rand Paul (3 percent each), Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum (2 percent each), Chris Christie (1 percent), and Jim Gilmore, Lindsey Graham, and George Pataki (less than 1 percent).

Dropping to 3 percent earned Paul the “biggest loser” title from Public Policy Polling’s Tom Jensen and was the only topline result that shocked me. Things got way more interesting in the cross-tabs. I enclose below the five findings that struck me most.

As a bonus, I added at the end of this post completely unsurprising numbers from PPP’s survey of registered Iowa voters: Governor Terry Branstad is underwater with 42 percent approval and 47 percent disapproval. Last month’s high-profile line-item vetoes are even less popular.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

The Americans With Disabilities Act took effect 25 years ago this week. How many laws have changed the country for the better as much as Senator Tom Harkin’s greatest achievement? The ADA helped millions of people who might have been housebound–like my friend who was able to run errands or take her son to the park, even though she was confined to a wheelchair. Judy Schmidt, who chairs the Iowa Democratic Party’s Disability Caucus, shared how the ADA has affected her in a guest column for the Cedar Rapids Gazette. I’ve enclosed excerpts after the jump. Bleeding Heartland posted more background and links about the law to mark its 20th anniversary. For the record, Iowa’s senior Senator Chuck Grassley also voted for the final version of the ADA, as did most of his fellow Republicans. UPDATE: Added below excerpts from Harkin’s guest editorial in the Sunday Des Moines Register.

Donald Trump has led the last five national polls of Republican voters and is rising in stature in Iowa, if you believe the latest surveys of likely GOP caucus-goers. Follow me after the jump for details.

I brought my kids to Bernie Sanders’ town-hall in West Des Moines on Friday night. My reflections on that event are at the end of this post.

Former Iowa House Speaker Pat Murphy made his second Congressional campaign official this morning. In the shortest YouTube candidate announcement video I’ve ever seen (just fourteen seconds long), Murphy declared, “The truck’s up and running…and so am I.” A press release announced, “Middle Class Fighter to Take on [GOP incumbent Rod] Blum,” and a e-mail to supporters fleshed out Murphy’s case. Excerpt:

Teri and I discussed this race long and hard and the bottom line is that middle class Iowans deserve to have a voice in Congress, somebody who knows the struggles they face, and will fight for them.  I’ve done that my whole life, because that’s who I am.  And there’s no other candidate running – from either party – who has been on the right side of these fights from day one.

From raising the minimum wage and teacher pay, passing equal pay for women, to protecting women’s health care and all Iowan’s civil rights.  That’s my record.  Fighting for progressive Iowa values is in my blood, with your help, it’s exactly what I’ll do in Congress.

Murphy’s campaign is on the web at Pat Murphy for Congress, on Facebook here, and Twitter here. (His old campaign website is no longer functional.)

I enclose below the candidate’s full e-mail to supporters, as well as excerpts from the press release. It points to Murphy’s lead in a recent internal poll of Democrats in IA-01 and recalls his outright victory in the 2014 primary, despite being outspent by some of his four opponents. The press release also notes that in the general election, Murphy outperformed both U.S. Senate nominee Bruce Braley and the gubernatorial ticket of Jack Hatch and Monica Vernon. Vernon has been considered the front-runner for the 2016 primary in IA-01, on the strength of early fundraising and endorsements from Iowa-based and Washington Democrats. Gary Kroeger is also seeking the Democratic nomination.

Former U.S. Representative Dave Nagle is backing Murphy for Congress again, as is the Blue America PAC, which supports progressive candidates in Democratic primaries as well as against Republicans in general elections. Murphy dominated the labor union endorsements before the 2014 primary. I’ll be interested to see whether Vernon picks up more labor support this cycle. So far, she has the backing of Teamsters Local 238, the “largest Teamster Local headquartered in the state of Iowa,” and the  Cedar Rapids/Iowa City Building Trades Council, which supported her during the 2014 primary. UPDATE: Added below a Vernon campaign press release “welcoming” Murphy to the race and listing her key endorsers. They include several Iowa House Democrats who served in the legislature while Murphy was speaker from 2007 through 2010. SECOND UPDATE: Added Kroeger’s statement below.

Quinnipiac’s new swing-state poll paints a worrying picture of the 2016 general election for Iowa Democrats. If the poll is accurate, Hillary Clinton’s favorability has plummeted in recent months, and at least three Republican candidates lead Clinton and other prospective Democratic candidates head to head in Iowa.  

This evening I was a respondent for a lengthy poll testing messages about Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. I assume the Clinton campaign commissioned this survey. If not her campaign, then some allied group. Most of the questions seemed geared toward determining what is driving Iowa Democrats toward or away from the front-runner and the senator from Vermont, who has claimed the progressive alternative niche in the presidential race. Several of the questions drew from rhetoric Clinton uses in her stump speech.

The caller identified herself as representing “National Data Collection.” She was calling from 586-200-0157, the same number used for a different message-testing phone poll I received in early March.

I almost feel sorry for these pollsters having to repeat so many questions when they call my house. My notes are after the jump. I’ve been a respondent for many polls over the years, but this one included a device that was new to me.

While many establishment Democrats favor Cedar Rapids City Council member Monica Vernon to take on Representative Rod Blum, the 2014 Democratic nominee Pat Murphy has revealed one reason he is said to be leaning toward running for Congress again. Erin Murphy reported yesterday,

Murphy outpolled Vernon, 43 percent to 34 percent, in a survey of 350 likely Democratic primary voters conducted last week in Iowa’s 1st Congressional District and released Tuesday by Murphy. Gary Kroeger was chosen by 12 percent of respondents.

The poll was conducted by Myers Research, a Washington, D.C.-based polling firm that Murphy also solicited during his 2014 campaign.

I wouldn’t read too much into partial results from an internal poll taken nearly a year before the Democratic primary, but as a general rule, I think competitive primaries help eventual nominees more than they hurt. If Murphy believes he can make a strong case for a second chance against Blum, let the Democratic voters in the first district decide, rather than leaving the choice to elected officials in Iowa or Washington.

Any comments related to the IA-01 race are welcome in this thread.

UPDATE: Added below a Murphy for Iowa press release about this poll. The July 15 statement says Murphy will “make a final decision about a 2016 campaign next week.” The attached polling memo says Murphy’s advantage over Vernon grows to 51 percent to 40 percent in a two-candidate race, and that Murphy leads among women as well as men in the sample.

Quinnipiac’s latest survey of likely Iowa Democratic caucus-goers shows Senator Bernie Sanders cutting into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s lead. The front-runner is ahead by 52 percent to 33 percent, compared to 60 percent for Clinton and 15 percent for Sanders in the previous Iowa Q-poll, released in May. The memo, results, and questionnaire for the latest survey are here. Vice President Joe Biden, who is very unlikely to run for president again, placed third with 7 percent support. Rounding out the declared Democratic field, former Governor Martin O’Malley registered 3 percent, former Senator Jim Webb 1 percent, and former Senator Lincoln Chaffee did not even reach the 1 percent mark among Quinnipiac’s respondents. Click here for more details on the sample and methodology. Live interviewers polled 761 likely Iowa Democratic caucus-goers between June 20 and 29, producing a statistical margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.

The person who should be most worried about this poll is O’Malley. Sanders has firmly occupied the niche of progressive alternative to Clinton–not just in New Hampshire, where he is better-known as a neighboring state’s senator, but across the country. I’ve seen speculation that O’Malley could position himself as a more electable alternative to Clinton than Sanders. But any Democrat concerned primarily about electability will probably vote or caucus for Clinton. Quinnipiac’s Iowa Democratic respondents still view her positively: 85 percent favorable, 10 percent unfavorable. So Sanders isn’t riding an anti-Hillary wave; rather, he has stronger appeal among liberals.

Any comments about the Democratic presidential race are welcome in this thread. Last weekend, I saw a fun example of the Iowa caucus-goer mentality when a local acquaintance on vacation in New England posted to Facebook photos from a Sanders rally she attended in New Hampshire.

From 515-512-4155. If you do a search in the right places it shows up as a residential DM/Windsor Heights number. I suspect someone is either volunteering with their own cell or working with a provided cell.

One of these days, I'm actually going to get the name of the polling firm doing the call. But for once, it's obviously local.

The caller actually confirmed my name.

1) Am l likely to participate in the Caucuses? How likely am I to vote. (Likely)

2) Which Caucus? (D)

3) How well do I know the candidates? (all)

4) Whom are you likely to support? (Bernie)

5) Let me read to you this statement – pollster reads a hellaciously long quote from Sanders' stump that aggressively summarizes his campaign. Are you still going to support Sen. Sanders? (hell, yes)

6) Why don't you support Clinton? (Because she doesn't give statements like what you just read)

6) Could you support Hillary Clinton (yes)

7) What would it take to support Hillary Clinton? (Sanders to leave the race)

6) Are you conservative, liberl, or moderate? (liberal)

7) And asks me my birth year. End of call.

I almost questioned if it was a push poll from the Clinton campaign with that long quote, but I think the Clinton campign or close supporter is getting really nervous about Sanders' support.

Quinnipiac’s latest poll of likely Iowa Republican caucus-goers shows a smaller lead for Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and a half-dozen candidates fighting for second place in a field of sixteen candidate. Click here for the polling memo and here for more on the methodology and polling sample. The statistical margin of error is plus or minus 3.8 percent for this live interviewer survey of 666 likely Iowa GOP caucus-goers between June 20 and 29. Walker still has a statistically significant lead with 18 percent of respondents naming him as their first choice. The rest of the field is clustered at 10 percent or lower, but there is a semblance of a top tier, comprised of Ben Carson and Donald Trump (10 percent each), Ted Cruz and Rand Paul (9 percent each), Jeb Bush (8 percent), and Marco Rubio (7 percent).

All other candidates are at 5 percent or below: Mike Huckabee and “don’t know/didn’t answer” (5 percent each), Rick Perry and Rick Santorum (4 percent each), Carly Fiorina and Bobby Jindal (3 percent each), John Kasich (2 percent), and Lindsey Graham and Chris Christie (1 percent each). George Pataki did not register even 1 percent support.

A poll like this exposes the absurdity of television networks restricting debates to the top ten candidates in a field of sixteen (fourteen declared already, with Walker and Kasich planning to announce later this month). The GOP presidential field is what you might call a “right royal mess.”  

After the jump I’ve posted highlights on the favorability numbers from the latest Q-poll. Any comments about the Republican caucuses are welcome in this thread. Last Friday, Jennifer Jacobs published an interesting Des Moines Register story about possible changes to the Iowa GOP’s rules for “binding” its delegates to presidential candidates before the 2016 Republican National Convention.

P.S.- Retail politics are important in Iowa, but Christie’s poor favorability ratings in this poll and others show that coming here often (nine times in the last three years alone, plus several visits in 2011 and 2012) won’t necessarily endear a candidate to Iowa Republicans.  

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread: all topics welcome. After the jump I’ve enclosed highlights from Selzer & Co’s latest Iowa poll for the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg Politics. I had planned to focus on that poll last weekend, until I heard the devastating news about Beau Biden.

Speaking of the Selzer poll, I’m waiting for the self-styled “Dr. Politics” (Iowa State University professor Steffen Schmidt) to square his assertion that Iowa Democrats “truly hate [Hillary] Clinton’s ‘listening tour’ campaign” with Selzer’s findings that 86 percent of likely Democratic caucus-goers view Clinton favorably, and 57 percent say she is their first choice for president. Yes, Bernie Sanders got great turnout for his Iowa events last weekend. But where is the evidence that Iowans “hate” the Clinton campaign?

The Des Moines Register ran lots of articles featuring poll results this past week. I got a kick out of the “Captain Obvious” headline for this piece: “Moderates, very conservative in GOP not always in sync.” You don’t say. I guess that’s why moderate and very conservative Republicans have gravitated toward different presidential candidates every four years for the last several decades.

The August straw poll is traditionally the most-watched “cattle call” before the Iowa Republican caucuses and an important state GOP fundraiser.

Responding to criticism of past straw polls, the Republican Party of Iowa revamped this year’s plans, hoping to encourage broad participation. However, signs point to most of the top-tier presidential candidates opting out.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

According to Gallup’s latest well-being survey of people in the 100 largest U.S. metro areas, residents of the Des Moines metro area “are the most likely to say they are proud of their community,” with some 76.5 percent of central Iowa respondents agreeing or strongly agreeing with a statement about community pride. Gallup’s write-up noted a correlation between that sentiment and feeling “safe and secure.” A remarkable 85.7 percent of Des Moines area respondents said they “always feel safe and secure,” a higher level than in any other metro area Gallup surveyed.

Washington Post reporter Philip Bump speculated, “The two proudest cities are in Iowa and S.C., because people love being fawned over by politicians.” I really don’t think so.

In the past few years, at least three dozen lists measuring quality of life or economic factors have put the Des Moines area in the top five or ten communities nationwide. Former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne has raved about some of the amenities our metro has to offer. Having lived in a couple of great American cities and a couple of great European cities, I moved back to the Des Moines area for the long haul. Although I am way more politically engaged than the average person, I wouldn’t factor presidential candidate visits into a decision on where to raise my children.

Speaking of being fawned over by politicians, eleven declared or potential contenders for the presidency spoke at the Iowa GOP’s Lincoln Dinner last night. Three declared candidates missed the event (former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz), as did at least a couple of others who are considering the presidential race (Ohio Governor John Kasich and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie). A dozen or more candidates will likely crowd the stage at GOP primary debates. My thoughts about the Lincoln Dinner speakers are coming in a future post. Philip Rucker and Jenna Johnson wrote a good piece for the Washington Post on Republican insiders’ growing anxiety about their large presidential field. Their sources included a heavyweight hated by many Iowa conservatives:

We’re in a danger zone,” said Doug Gross, a top Republican establishment figure in Iowa. “When the party poobahs put this process together, they thought they could telescope this to get us a nominee who could appeal to a broad cross-section of people. What we’ve got instead is a confederation of a lot of candidates who aren’t standing out – and in order to stand out, you need to scream the loudest.”

Speaking of people who stand out by screaming loudly, Representative Steve King posted a picture of himself yesterday with Dick and Betty Odgaard, who (in his words) were “targeted by LGBT activists/litigated out of 1man/1woman wedding business.” False. Here’s what really happened after the Odgaards refused to let a gay couple rent the Görtz Haus in Grimes for a wedding.  

What’s on your mind this weekend? This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

Happy Mother’s Day to those who enjoy the holiday, and healing thoughts to those for whom today is a difficult reminder of bereavements or a less than ideal mother/child relationship. In past years, Bleeding Heartland has compiled Mother’s Day-related links here, here, here, and here.

My most substantive post about mothering was not related to the holiday: My case against Hanna Rosin’s case against breastfeeding.

Since Thursday I’ve been caught up in news about the May 7 general election in the United Kingdom. While polls predicted a few of the results, such as Scottish National Party gains in Scotland and devastation for the Liberal Democrats nearly everywhere, no one anticipated such a large popular vote lead for the Conservative Party, which gave the Tories enough seats to form a government without any coalition partners. As election day approached, it appears that polling firms were “herding” to avoid releasing a survey that could be an embarrassing outlier. Nate Silver discussed the phenomenon of pollsters “putting a thumb on the scale” after last year’s midterm election.

Damian Lyons Lowe, founder of the British polling firm Survation, admitted here that his company “chickened out” of publishing data from a telephone poll taken the day before the UK election, because “the results seemed so ‘out of line’ with all the polling conducted by ourselves and our peers.” That final Survation poll turned out to be close to predicting the popular vote share for the Tories and Labour.

Facing a similar situation last fall, the Des Moines Register’s pollster Ann Selzer stood by her final numbers for Iowa’s U.S. Senate race. That poll looked like an outlier to me and many others, but Selzer was wise not to chicken out or tweak the numbers to follow the herd.

So far this year, various Iowa polls on the presidential candidates in both parties have largely agreed with one another. Most recently, Quinnipiac found a statistically significant lead for Scott Walker and a “scramble for second place” on the Republican side and a huge gap between Hillary Clinton and the rest of the Democratic field. I’m curious to see whether survey findings from different firms will start to diverge as we get closer to the Iowa caucuses early next year.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is targeting Representatives Rod Blum (IA-01) and David Young (IA-03) as “one-term wonders.” Public Policy Polling’s latest Iowa survey will encourage them:

Rod Blum has a 31/31 favorability rating in his district, with a 38% plurality having no opinion one way or the other. David Young is worse off with a 24/35 favorability rating and 41% having no opinion about him. Both of these folks’ fate will probably be up to which way the political winds are blowing next fall.

Full results from the PPP poll are here. The margin of error for subsamples in a single Congressional district will be larger than for the full sample of 1,219 Iowa voters surveyed between April 23 and 26.

Three Democrats have entered the race in IA-01: Monica Vernon, Ravi Patel, and Gary Kroeger. Former State Senator Swati Dandekar is considering a challenge here too. The district is the most Democratic-leaning in Iowa. According to the latest figures from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office, IA-01 contains 154,096 active registered Democrats, 133,458 Republicans, and 189,153 no-party voters.

No Democrats have announced candidacies in IA-03. Several are considering the race, including State Senator Matt McCoy. Former State Senate candidate Desmund Adams has been touring the district talking with Democratic activists over the last couple of months. At this writing, IA-03 contains 150,975 active registered Democrats, 162,894 Republicans, and 160,498 no-party voters.

Any comments about Iowa’s Congressional races are welcome in this thread.

Governor Terry Branstad is forging ahead with some major policies he didn’t campaign on last year, oblivious to concerns about the impact on Iowa’s Medicaid recipients and people served by two mental health institutions the governor wants to close.

According to Public Policy Polling’s latest Iowa survey, the governor’s plans are deeply unpopular.

Public Policy Polling is out with its first Iowa caucus survey since last May. Click here for full results or here for Tom Jensen’s polling memo. I enclose below highlights and my thoughts on the most interesting findings.

Any comments related to the Iowa caucus campaign are welcome in this thread.

Aside from Senator Ted Cruz kicking of his presidential campaign, last week was a relatively quiet one in Iowa caucus news. But there are still plenty of stories and prospects to discuss.

Any comments about the presidential race are welcome in this thread. Follow me after the jump for a news roundup.

Late last week, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker rolled out his first batch of prominent Iowa supporters: four Republican state senators and two central Iowa county officials.

The support for Walker follows two recent opinion polls showing him leading the pack of likely presidential candidates among Iowa Republican caucus-goers. If the last presidential campaign is any guide, though, early legislative endorsements tell us nothing about candidate performance on Iowa caucus night.

Ten potential Republican presidential candidates will speak at Bruce Rastetter’s Iowa Agriculture Summit today, and a few more may send videotaped remarks. But only one GOP contender was the focus of a long and flattering feature by the Des Moines Register’s chief political correspondent the day before the event.

When Jeb Bush hired longtime Iowa GOP consultant David Kochel, I figured friendly coverage in the Register would be coming to the former Florida governor. During last year’s U.S. Senate campaign, just about every line Joni Ernst’s backers wanted out there ended up in some Des Moines Register piece by Jennifer Jacobs. Still, Jacobs’ spread on Bush in Friday’s Des Moines Register shocked me. The message could hardly have been more perfectly tailored for Iowa Republicans if Bush’s spin doctors had written it themselves.

Someone is paying to test a series of negative messages about Hillary Clinton among Iowa Democrats. Our household received a call from a Michigan-based polling firm last night. The interviewer asked for my husband by name, indicating that the pollster was working from a list of Iowa Democratic caucus-goers or reliable voters. After typical likely voter screening questions, a ballot test among Democratic candidates, and a few statements about President Barack Obama, most of the the poll focused on unflattering messages about Hillary Clinton. My notes are after the jump. Some messages appear multiple times, because there was quite a bit of repetition in the survey.

I haven’t been able to identify who paid for this poll, but I’m confident it didn’t come from Clinton’s inner circle or any group supporting her presidential ambitions. Unlike two other recent polls of Iowa Democrats, which Bleeding Heartland covered here and Iowa Starting Line covered here, this survey tested almost no positive statements about Clinton or her record. Then again, Pat Rynard suspects the Clinton campaign did commission this poll, citing similarities to the call he received last month.

In theory, a group favoring a different Democratic candidate for president would want to test lines of attack against Hillary. But to my ear, this poll sounded like the work of a Republican or conservative advocacy group. The questionnaire didn’t include any positive messages about any other potential Democratic candidates. Near the beginning of the survey, my husband was asked about his first and second choice if the Iowa caucuses were held today. But after the laundry list of negative statements about Clinton, the poll didn’t repeat the ballot test to see whether respondents now would be inclined to caucus for Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, or Martin O’Malley over Clinton. (I don’t think Jim Webb was included.)

I don’t know how long this poll has been in the field, but the questionnaire must have been finalized before this week, because there were no questions about Clinton using her personal e-mail account for work during her tenure as secretary of state.

UPDATE: Maybe this poll originated within the Clinton circle after all. Patrick Ruffini pointed out that the call my household received came from the same phone number as polling calls backing the Democratic candidate in a New York Congressional race last year. If the survey firm mainly works for Democrats, then Clinton’s team or a group supporting her aspirations must be behind the poll. No rival Democratic candidate would have paid for a lengthy questionnaire including zero positive messages about alternatives to Clinton.

MARCH 10 UPDATE: According to the latest edition of HuffPollster, “many reports of calls from 586-200-0157 from recipients nationwide who were told they had been called by Mountain West Research, a call center used as subcontractor by campaign pollsters.” Several past Democratic candidates have used the firm.

February has been a busy month for possible Democratic presidential candidates in Iowa. This thread is for any comments related to next year’s Iowa caucuses. Here are a few links to get the conversation started.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign (or some group close to Clinton) appears to be message-testing Iowa Democrats. Pat Rynard was a respondent in the latest survey, and the questions had a lot in common with the poll Bleeding Heartland wrote up here. One noticeable difference: the new poll hints at a strong focus on paid family and sick leave if Clinton runs for president.

NBC/Marist released the latest poll of Iowa Democrats, showing Clinton way ahead with 68 percent support. Vice President Joe Biden was a distant second place with 12 percent, though that poll did not ask respondents about Senator Elizabeth Warren. In hypothetical general election match-ups, Clinton leads former Florida Governor Jeb Bush by 48 percent to 40 percent in Iowa, and leads Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker by 49 percent to 38 percent.

The vice president stopped in central Iowa earlier this month. After meeting briefly with Governor Terry Branstad, Biden visited the Des Moines Area Community College, where he touted free community college tuition. Speaking at Drake University, Biden encouraged Democratic candidates to run on the Obama administration’s record in 2016. Playing for laughs, the Des Moines Register’s coverage focused on “great Joe Biden-isms.”. (For what it’s worth, where Jason Noble heard Biden calling former Representative Neal Smith his “old butt buddy,” to my ear it sounded more like a mini-stutter: “an old bud- buddy.”) Pat Rynard’s write-up was more substantive, and I tend to agree with his conclusion: Biden didn’t sound like a future presidential candidate at Drake.

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders just finished a three-day swing through Iowa. He spoke to supporters at Iowa City’s Prairie Lights book store, talked to students at Drake and the University of Iowa, headlined the Iowa Citizen Action Network’s annual dinner in Johnston, spoke in Cedar Rapids and Tipton, and finally was the start guest at the Story County Democrats’ soup dinner in Ames. Sanders continues to highlight his key issues of economic inequality and money in politics. At several of his Iowa stops he also called on Republicans not to tie Department of Homeland Security funding to rolling back President Barack Obama’s immigration policies. He has yet to indicate whether he might run for president as a Democrat or as an independent.

Former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley hasn’t been to Iowa this month, but he’ll headline events for the Scott County Democrats in March and the Polk County Democrats in April.

Finally, Iowa Starting Line has kicked off a series of posts on how Democratic presidential candidates can win key counties in Iowa. Author Rynard has worked on various campaigns in different parts of the state. The first two installments focused on Clinton County and Woodbury County.