A new Des Moines Register poll of Iowa Democrats reinforces the results of other recent polls from the state — Gephardt is pulling ahead and Dean’s Iowa lead is gone.
Polling Iowa Dems likely to participate in the Jan. 19 caucuses, which are just 69 days away, the Register’s poll results largely mirror the results of a Research 2000 poll released early last week. Below are the results from the poll released this week, with trend data from July and August (margin of error +/- 4.4%).
Gephardt — 27 percent (21 percent in July, 21 percent in August)
Dean — 20 percent (21 percent in July, 23 percent in August)
Kerry — 15 percent (14 percent in July, 14 percent in August)
Edwards — 5 percent (5 percent in July and August)
Lieberman — 5 percent (10 percent in July, 10 percent in August)
Clark — 4 percent (no data from July or August)
Kucinich — 3 percent (3 percent in July, 4 percent in August)
Braun — 1 percent (1 percent in July and August)
Sharpton — 1 percent (1 percent in July and August)
A couple of observations about this poll: It was conducted between Nov. 2 and 5, which includes the time when Dean’s Confederate flag controversy was in the news. The flap may be partially responsible for lowering Dean’s support. However, the poll was also conducted well before Dean won the SEIU endorsement, which could give Dean a boost in Iowa over the next several weeks.
And while Gephardt’s surge is impressive, I was a little surprised to see Kerry closing in a bit on Dean in Iowa. In July, Dean’s lead over Kerry was seven points, in August it was up to nine points, but now it’s down to five points, which is just above the margin of error. As I’ve said before Gephardt needs Iowa more than Dean does, but if Dean falls down to third behind Kerry, it could be damaging for Dean and a huge boost for Kerry.
Lastly, I thought it was encouraging for Clark that he garnered four percent support. Sure, that’s not a significant number, but he announced a month ago that he wouldn’t even try to compete in Iowa and hasn’t even stepped foot in the state for a while. Clark barely trails Edwards in this poll, 5 to 4 percent, yet Edwards has been spending time and money there for nearly a year. If Clark could somehow finish fourth or fifth in Iowa without even trying, I think his campaign could spin that as a very strong showing.