Hillary Clinton waits to be introduced at a campaign event on the campus of Des Moines Area Community College in Ankeny, Iowa, in August.
Scott Olson / Getty Images
AMES — All this week we’re keeping an eye on how candidates, the media and voters are using polls. This morning’s subject: Hillary Clinton.
I’ll cut the suspense — she did not cite a poll. But the latest numbers on Clinton vs. Bernie Sanders (which Nate broke down earlier) certainly set the tone for her speech to a mix of students and local supporters at Iowa State University. And reporters who’ve been covering Clinton throughout this election said today marked a shift in her approach to the Vermont senator.
This morning, Clinton rolled out an endorsement from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, whose president introduced her in Ames. She then offered her broadest critique yet of Sanders, repeatedly mentioning his voting record on gun control.
I still hold out hope that we’ll catch a candidate going deep into the cross-tabs at some point this week. But it’s clear that the Clinton camp is watching the polls — and, more importantly, watching how the media is watching the polls — if not citing them explicitly.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post referred incorrectly to the venue for Clinton’s speech. It was Iowa State University, not the University of Iowa.
MILE MARKER 166, I-80 E —We’ll be debuting our Iowa and New Hampshire forecasts soon, and they’re coming at a good time for Bernie Sanders, who has had a strong run of polls so far this week.
In Iowa, in fact, two recent polls show Sanders narrowly ahead of Clinton. Several others show Clinton with a small lead. The shift is noteworthy, however, given that Clinton hadn’t trailed in an Iowa poll since September and had roughly a 15-point lead in the Iowa polling average at the end of December.
It’s probably worth being at least a little bit skeptical of a polling swing like this one without any major news events to precipitate it. But here’s the thing: You can make the case that Sanders was underachieving in Iowa before. As we’ve been saying since July, it’s entirely plausible that Sanders could win the state.
From a 30,000-foot level, the demographics of the Democratic caucuses here should look pretty similar to those of the New Hampshire primary. Meaning there will be lots of white liberals. And while Sanders doesn’t have the advantage in Iowa of hailing from a neighboring state, as he does in New Hampshire, he has some other things working for him here: lots of college students and caucuses that rely heavily on voter enthusiasm, which could make his ground game more important. Plus, Iowa was a tough state for Clinton in 2008 (while New Hampshire was a good one for her).
Young people listen to Bernie Sanders at a campaign stop at a community center in Perry on Monday.
