Poll: Clinton, Obama close in Iowa

[ccpup]

Poll: Clinton, Obama in Virtual Tie in Iowa With Edwards Close Behind

The Associated Press
AP News

Dec 03, 2007 10:05 EST

THE RACE: The presidential race for Democrats in Iowa

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THE NUMBERS

Hillary Rodham Clinton, 31 percent

Barack Obama, 26 percent

John Edwards, 19 percent

Bill Richardson, 10 percent

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OF INTEREST:

Clinton and Obama are in a statistical tie among likely Democratic voters in the state, whose Jan. 3 caucuses will open the voting in the 2008 presidential campaign. Clinton has only a slight lead among women, a group she usually dominates. Though Clinton leads Obama 35 percent to 24 percent among Democrats, Obama leads 32 percent to 19 percent with Democratic-leaning independents, who made up a fifth of Democratic caucus-goers in 2004. Obama has a slight lead among voters less than age 50, but Clinton has a two-to-one edge among older people — and they were a majority of caucus participants four years ago.

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The telephone poll, done by The Associated Press and the Pew Research Center, was conducted Nov. 7-25 and involved interviews with 460 likely Democratic voters in Iowa. It had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 5.5 percentage points.

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COMPLETE RESULTS: http://people-press.org

Source: AP News

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/mochila.php?articleId=10815028&channelId=76&buyerId=talkingpointsmemo_com400732&buid=866

[MethuenProgressive]

1. "Bill Richardson, 10 percent"

Ready to zoom past Edwards into third place in Iowa!

[geek tragedy]

2. 18-day time span? n/t

[dmallind]

3. I will be consistent

Not original or uniquely insightful perhaps, but consistent.

These fluctuations of 2-3 percentage points for any candidate up or down, regardless of whether those fluctuations put HRC or BO in the lead, are meaningless even in terms of current snapshots, let alone predictive meaning.

This simply shows the silliness of relying on "trends" from a couple of tracking polls showing Obama "gaining". Those polls didn;t mean that, and this one doesn't mean he's losing ground either.

Simple fungibility and variation. No more no less, in both cases. Iowa remanins a toss up as it has been for quite a while.

[Deep13]

4. Polls don't matter in Iowa.

It is not enough there to vote for a candidate. One has to be prepared to hang around all evening to vote by a show of hands. Not a lot of people have time for that.

[Skip Intro]

5. Wow, Hillary back on top in Iowa!

thanks.