Iowa Poll: Race tightens; Ernst by 1 point
Copyright 2014, Des Moines Register and Tribune Co.
Iowa's blitzkrieg U.S. Senate race is now a 1-point contest: Republican Joni Ernst is at 47 percent, and Democrat Bruce Braley is right at her heels at 46 percent with likely voters, a new Iowa Poll shows.
As armies of Democratic activists go door to door urging Iowans to fill out absentee ballots, they're piling up votes for Braley, who was 6 points down just two weeks ago.
"Braley's catching up," said J. Ann Selzer, the pollster for The Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics Iowa Poll, which was conducted Oct. 3-8.
But Ernst has made gains, too. She's 3 percentage points higher than two weeks ago, when she was at 44 percent.
The new poll reveals three potential reasons why this race has tightened in the final sprint:
• The Democrats' aggressive early voting push is aiding Braley, an eight-year congressman from Waterloo. They're rounding up ballots from Iowans who would not otherwise have voted.
• A majority of Iowa likely voters appreciate having a U.S. senator from each political party. Retiring Democratic U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, 74, has been an old-school liberal street fighter for Iowa for 30 years. And Republican U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, 81, who intends to keep adding to his 33 years in the Senate, is a conservative powerhouse.
• Likely voters find more of Braley's policy positions closer to their own views than Ernst's positions among 10 issues tested. A majority of likely voters favor six of Braley's stances to four of Ernst's.
The Iowa Poll of 1,000 likely voters in the 2014 general election has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
Even after millions of dollars of positive and negative TV ads have been disgorged on Iowans, both candidates have roughly equal favorable and unfavorable ratings, the poll shows.
The race is one of the most competitive in the nation. It's being closely watched nationally because its outcome could be key in determining the balance of power in the Senate, now controlled by Democrats.
Twenty-three days out from the Nov. 4 Election Day, the candidates have few likely voters left to scrap over. Two weeks ago, 12 percent said they remained undecided. Now it's just 4 percent.
Debbie McDaniel, 64, of Davenport, is one. She has made up her mind in the governor's race, but not in the U.S. Senate race.
"I'd like to hear a little more answers from them being blunt and telling it straight," McDaniel said, "but these darn TV ads and a recording when you pick up the phone — I'm past done with that."
So what can Iowa voters expect from Braley and Ernst in this tense closing stretch?
Braley will focus on voter turnout, while Ernst will play up voters' tendency nationally to view Republicans as better able to deal with trouble, predicted Iowa political analyist Christopher Larimer of the University of Northern Iowa.
"The key group for Braley are folks who turned out in 2008 and 2012 and can be identified as likely Democratic voters, but are less likely to vote in a midterm. That's where the differential will be," Larimer said.
"For Ernst," he said, "she has to keep momentum going, which will include continuing to tie Braley to Obama, Obamacare, a sagging economy, and, importantly, a weak foreign policy."
How voters split by issue
The Iowa Poll tested 10 issues to see if likely voters identify more with the Democratic stance or the GOP stance.
Braley's winning positions are:
• Keep Social Security the way it is (61 percent).
• Keep abortion legal (56 percent).
• Address man-made climate change (55 percent).
• Push harder to reform financial industry (52 percent).
• Recognize equal marriage rights (50 percent).
• Raise the minimum wage (50 percent agree, but 48 percent favor Ernst's view).
Ernst's winning positions are:
• Make entire tax code flatter (63 percent).
• Repeal Obamacare (55 percent).
• Extend greater protection to the right to bear arms (55 percent).
• Wait to move on immigration matters until border is secured (52 percent).
General economic philosophy favors Braley:
In addition, respondents were asked about the general economic philosophies embraced by the Republican and Democratic parties.
More likely voters approve of the Democrats' general approach (focus tax cuts on the middle class, raise the minimum wage and invest in infrastructure to create new jobs) than the Republicans' (reduce government spending, cut growth in Medicare and Social Security spending, cut taxes for everyone and create more tax incentives for businesses to invest in new jobs). Nine percent are unsure.
Twenty-four percent of self-described Republicans agree with the Democratic view, compared to 14 percent of Democrats who agree with the Republican view. Independents swing toward the Democratic view, 47 percent to 41 percent.
About the poll
The Iowa Poll, conducted Oct. 3-8 for The Des Moines Register and Bloomberg Politics by Selzer & Co. of Des Moines, is based on telephone interviews with 1,000 Iowans ages 18 or older who say they have already voted or will definitely vote in the 2014 general election and 1,107 Iowa adults who say they will definitely vote in the 2016 general election.
Interviewers contacted 1,651 Iowans ages 18 or older with randomly selected land line and cell phone numbers. Responses were adjusted by age, sex and congressional district to reflect the general population based on recent Census data.
Questions based on the subsample of 1,000 Iowa likely voters in the 2014 election have a maximum margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, and those based on the subsample of 1,107 likely voters in the 2016 election have a maximum margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points. This means that if this survey were repeated using the same questions and the same methodology, 19 times out of 20 the findings would not vary from the percentages shown here by more than plus or minus 3.1 percentage points or 2.9 percentage points, respectively. Results based on smaller samples of respondents — such as by gender or age — have a larger margin of error.
Republishing the copyright Iowa Poll without credit to The Des Moines Register and Bloomberg Politics is prohibited.
What it means
Here are five take-home messages:
1 The early voting numbers favor Braley. Later voting favors Ernst.
Early voting hadn't started yet when the Register did its Sept. 21-24 Iowa Poll. In the two weeks since then (voting started Sept. 25), Braley has climbed 8 percentage points, from 38 percent.
Among the 15 percent of poll respondents who say they have already voted, Braley leads convincingly, 56 percent to 38 percent.
Although Republicans have upped their game on early voting, even underdog Democratic challenger Jack Hatch wins the governor's race among those who have already cast an absentee ballot, the poll shows.
The poll shows that among likely voters who say they definitely still plan to vote, Ernst holds a 5 point lead — 48 percent to 43 percent.
2. Braley has begun to overcome some of the vulnerabilities detected in the Iowa Poll two weeks ago.
He's now ahead in the 1st District — his home district, which he has represented since 2006 — albeit by 1 point, 46 percent to 45 percent.
Ernst, a four-year state senator and military commander from Red Oak, was up double digits with independents in the last poll. Now, Braley has shored up that gap and is ahead with independents by 1 point, 43 percent to 42 percent.
Braley, who has been dogged by criticism about his seemingly disparaging reference last winter to Grassley as "a farmer from Iowa who never went to law school," is still suffering with rural voters. Just 36 percent support him, compared with 57 percent for Ernst, a 21-point difference.
"Ernst's advantage with rural voters would be hard to overcome," Selzer said. "That said, Braley's advantage in the cities partially offsets it." His lead there is 14 points, 53 percent to 39 percent.
Braley has also made progress in winning over male voters. He was losing with men by 25 points in the last poll; he remains 16 points behind Ernst. With women, he's ahead by 14 points.
. 3Ernst continues to show strengths.
Among voters who think the country is headed the wrong direction, Ernst still leads by a substantial margin, 64 percent to 29 percent. Her campaign has tried to leverage this dissatisfaction, regularly trying to tie Braley to Washington and its "failures."
The youngest likely voters are still with Ernst; she beats Braley by 12 points with those 35 and under.
Her lead in Iowa's 4th District, Steve King country in northwestern Iowa, is 14 points.
She wins 64 percent of born-again/evangelical voters, compared to Braley's 29 percent.
4. Likely voters have an appreciation for Iowa's purple U.S. Senate delegation.
A majority (53 percent) think Iowa's split delegation has been an advantage.
But it's unclear if this motivates them enough to influence their choice in this race.
Just 25 percent of likely voters consider having a bipartisan team a disadvantage, and 11 percent say it doesn't matter.
5. Iowans are nearly split down the middle on whether to raise the minimum wage or leave it where it is.
Beyond that issue, Braley has five policy positions on his side among 10 tested, and Ernst has four.
By 18 points, they say Braley's stance that abortion should be legal more closely matches their view. They're also strongly pro-gun: By 14 percentage points, more voters side with Ernst's stance to extend protections of the right to bear arms than want to make gun laws more restrictive.