Dan Guild, a liberal blogger for Bleeding Heartland, declares that former Vice President Joe Biden’s polling in Iowa spells doom for his campaign in the state, despite leading his Democratic opponents.
The latest Democratic caucus poll by Selzer & Co for the Des Moines Register has Biden sitting atop the pile of two dozen Democratic primary contenders for 2020 at 24%, but Guild argues that being unable to break 25% will be his undoing. The number is, in fact, his lowest polling in Iowa since December, when he peaked at 32%.
Guild says that only 1 in 4 “front-runners” that have polled beneath 30% went on to win in the Iowa caucus. He brings up Hillary Clinton in 2008, John Kerry in 2003, and Mitt Romney in 2012 as outliers, who either nearly or did win their party’s nomination.
Leaning on second choices and third choices in the polling, Guild concludes his post by saying that Iowa is more wide open than people assume and that if exit polls from previous years are any indication, a large majority of voters haven’t even made up their mind yet.
“Any of these candidates have a very realistic shot at winning Iowa,” Guild writes. “And I would be surprised if another candidate who is not in this group does not surge. History tells us Biden will probably lose Iowa. History and this poll also tell us Iowa is wide open and likely to be very unpredictable.”
Bleeding Heartland describes itself as a “community blog about Iowa politics, especially campaigns and elections, state government, social, and environmental issues.” The site is primarily run from liberal-leaning Laura Belin since 2008, according to the site’s Patreon page.
