As the Iowa caucuses herald the start of the US presidential primaries on Monday night, a highly-regarded poll finds that Republican Donald Trump has “muscled ahead” with a four per cent lead over Ted Cruz, while on the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton has just a “slim edge” over Bernie Sanders.
The final Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics poll, regarded as Iowa’s “gold standard” because of its long record of accuracy, put Trump at 28 per cent, with immediate rival Cruz sliding to 23 per cent after having led the billionaire businessman in its earlier poll.
On the Democratic side, Clinton, who once enjoyed a lead in Iowa as elsewhere, is now at 45 per cent as against Sanders’ 42 per cent. It also remained to be seen if the latest flap over Clinton’s use of a private email server as Secretary of State affects her standing further.
While Trump has been leading the Republican field nationally for the past few months, Senator Cruz had forged ahead of him in Iowa. This situation has changed only in recent days.
Although Trump leads the table now, the latest poll notes that Cruz is still “more popular and respected than Trump” in Iowa. As pollster J. Ann Selzer put it, “The drill-down shows, if anything, stronger alignment with Cruz than Trump, except for the horse race.”
“A victory for Trump would give him a huge head start toward the nomination, paving the way for him to achieve the unprecedented feat of winning both the first caucus voting in Iowa and the first primary in New Hampshire,” said The Des Moines Register, which interestingly enough endorsed Senator Marco Rubio for the Republican nomination.
Jeb Bush, the former Florida Governor who was once viewed as a potential front-runner, and other Republicans are all polling low. After Trump and Cruz, it’s Rubio, who is at 15 per cent, followed by retired neurosurgeon with 10 per cent. Republicans like Bush, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee are polling just 2 per cent each in Iowa.