A new Focus on Rural America poll in Iowa shows Elizabeth Warren now leading the Democratic field in the first caucus state with 20%, a statistical tie with Kamala Harris at 18% and Joe Biden at 17%.
Bernie Sanders trails at 12%, followed by Pete Buttigieg at 10%, Amy Klobuchar at 4% and Cory Booker at 2%.
Following yesterday, this is an additional poll showing a shift in the race in both Iowa and nationally showing Harris and Warren surging and Biden and Sanders collapsing. But there is a new Washington Post-ABC News poll that is contradictory, finding Joe Biden leading the race with 29%, followed by Bernie Sanders at 23%, Kamala Harris At 11% and Elizabeth Warren At 11%. Others are in the low single digits, at best.
We also have a new Reuters/Ipsos poll finds Biden at 22%, followed by Sanders at 16%, Harris at 10% and Warren at 9%. This poll finds support for Joe Biden among black voters, a critical Democratic voting bloc, was cut in half, with about two out of 10 saying they backed the former vice president, compared with four out of 10 in the June poll.
Jonathan Bernstein: “The polls have certainly changed. Former Vice President Joe Biden has lost about five percentage points in the Real Clear Politics average. Senator Bernie Sanders has also lost a couple. Senator Elizabeth Warren is up by about one percentage point and Senator Kamala Harris has shot up by six. So Biden still has a solid but smaller lead, while Harris, Sanders and Warren are now in a three-way tie for second. That’s new.”
“Remember, though, that it’s still very early. An initial round of good results for Harris could lead to a continued surge, or her support could dissipate over the next week or two. We’ve seen that happen a number of times already this cycle.”
“Suppose the results stick. Can we call that a debate effect? That’s not clear either. It could be that the debate did nothing more than push people in the direction they were already heading – that is, toward the strong but little-known candidates, and away from weaker but better-known candidates.”
Harry Enten: “While much of the attention in post-debate polling has focused on the drop of former Vice President Joe Biden, Sanders’ polling looks far worse. Sanders’ Iowa and national polls are quite weak for someone with near universal name recognition.”
“History has not been kind to primary runner-ups of previous primaries polling this low of a position. I went back and looked at where 13 previous runner-ups since 1972 have been polling at this point in the primary. All six who went on to win the nomination were polling above Sanders’ 14%.”
New York Times: “Three years after nominating the first woman in history to head a presidential ticket, nearly six months after a wave of energized women swept Democrats into power in the House, and as a record number of women run for president, the party finds itself grappling with the strangely enduring question of the electability of women — and with the challenge for the candidates of refuting it before it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
“Privately, Democratic strategists, candidates and officials say they’ve been alarmed by how deeply doubts about female electability have taken hold. In polling, interviews and focus groups, a portion of the party’s voters suggest they’re eager to see a woman on the ticket but fear that putting her in the top slot could cost them the White House — again. The question comes up frequently in early primary states, including at events organized for female voters.”
“Much of the concern centers not on what Democratic voters themselves say they want but a prediction of what they believe others will support.”
David Wasserman: “Democrats at risk of learning absolute wrong lesson from 2016. The prospect of being the first female president is a general election asset.”
Joe Biden has raised $21.5 million since entering the presidential race in late April, the New York Times reports.
“Pete Buttigieg raised $24.8 million in the quarter and Sen. Bernie Sanders collected $18 million, their campaigns said this week. Unlike Mr. Biden, both Mr. Sanders and Mr. Buttigieg were candidates for the entire quarter; Mr. Biden entered the race on April 25.”
Jonathan Chait: “The Democratic presidential primary has worked to the party’s disadvantage by maneuvering its candidates into unpopular positions. This is not quite a crisis, but it is a serious danger that, if not redressed, could blow up in the party’s face.”
“Democrats have lots of room to run to attack President Trump from the left on economic and social policy while placing themselves on the right side of public opinion. And while the party as a whole has done so, the presidential contenders have been jostling to stand out by adopting a series of highly unpopular stances. To date, the following positions have been taken by some or all the candidates: replace all employer-provided private insurance with a government plan; decriminalize the border while also providing subsidized health insurance to undocumented immigrants; and provide reparations for the descendants of American slaves.”
“All these positions would likely be serious liabilities in a general election. What’s more, none of them would appear to stand any plausible chance of enactment in the next administration.”
A new series of Morning Consult polls finds President Trump remains underwater in key battleground states:
- New Hampshire: 37% approval, 60% disapproval (-23 net approval)
- Michigan: 40% approval, 55% disapproval (-15)
- Wisconsin: 42% approval, 56% disapproval (-14)
- Iowa: 42% approval, 55% disapproval (-13)
- Pennsylvania 44% approval, 53% disapproval (-9)
- Arizona: 45% approval, 52% disapproval (-7)
- Ohio: 45% approval, 51% disapproval (-6)
- North Carolina: 47% approval, 50% disapproval (-3)
- Florida: 47% approval, 50% disapproval (-3)
- Indiana: 49% approval, 48% disapproval (+1)
“The National Rifle Association aired an avalanche of TV ads and pushed its 5 million-plus members to the polls for Donald Trump in 2016, propelling him in the Rust Belt states that delivered him the presidency,” Politico reports.
“Now, the gun rights group is in total meltdown — and senior Republicans and Trump 2020 officials are alarmed.”
Beto O’Rourke declined to say how much he raised in the second quarter of the year, saying he did not yet know his fundraising numbers,” Politico reports. Said O’Rourke: “I haven’t seen them yet.”
“Pete Buttigieg is proposing a massive expansion of national service programs in a bid to help unify Americans and bring people from different backgrounds together,” Reuters reports.
Said Buttigieg: “National service can help us to form connections between very different kinds of Americans, as was my experience in the military. I served alongside and trusted my life to people who held totally different political views. You shouldn’t have to go to war in order to have that kind of experience, which is why I am proposing a plan to create more opportunities for national service.”
Politico: “The ultimate goal of the plan is to set up a pipeline for as many as 4 million high school graduates every year to do a national service program.”
Mark Kelly (D), the retired astronaut who is hoping to unseat Sen. Martha McSally (R) in Arizona’s 2020 Senate race, raised $4.2 million during April, May and June, exceeding his first-quarter fundraising, the Arizona Republic reports.
A new Colorado Poll finds Sen. Cory Gardner (R) is viewed favorably by 40% of state voters and unfavorably by 39%. In contrast, Gov. Jared Polis (D) has a much better 50% to 35% favorability rating.
CBS News: “A series of Facebook video ads for President Donald Trump’s re-election efforts shows what appears to be a young woman strolling on a beach in Florida, a Hispanic man on a city street in Texas and a bearded hipster in a coffee shop in Washington, D.C., all making glowing, voice-over endorsements of the president.”
“There’s just one problem: The people in the videos that ran in the past few months are all actually models in stock video footage produced far from the U.S. in France, Brazil and Turkey, and available to anyone online for a fee.”
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) “may be a darling among libertarians and constitutional conservatives, but the Kentucky Republican is the target of some who are actively recruiting a primary challenger for 2020,” the Louisville Courier Journal reports.
“Two independent sources with knowledge of campaign discussions say state Rep. Kim Moser (R) is being groomed for a possible bid against the congressman… The two sources, who requested anonymity, told the Courier Journal that Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), who has made putting more women in Congress a personal passion, was among those looking for a challenger for Massie.”
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