Ann Selzer conducts the Iowa Poll for the Des Moines Register and she certainly knows Iowa better than other pollster.
The Iowa Poll is the gold standard of Iowa polls. This poll alone showed the come from behind wins for Tom Harkin way back in 1984 against incumbent senator Jepsen. It showed Vilsack's come from behind win over Lightfoot in 1998. In 2008 all other polls showed a tight race between Hillary, Edwards and Obama. The DM Register predicted a blow-out 7 point win for Obama. They were right and Iowa's former governor was wrong.
Today they are out with a new poll and it shows:
Obama - 49%
Romney - 45%
So Obama is ahead but not by a lot.
Iowa Democrats should be happy but not complacent. I'm not geeky enough to remember the details but I'm pretty sure Jepsen and Lightfoot had bigger leads a month before the election and still lost.
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As much I want to think Iowa is the center of the political universe (without Iowa Hillary would be president now instead of Barack), in this election the real center of the universe is Ohio.
A new poll there:
Obama 51%
Romney 42%
This comes after the Romney/Ryan bus trip through Ohio. Realistically, they'd like to cut their losses and run but there just aren't many good places to run.
Oh, how I wish the election were two days away instead of 37.
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