Clinton campaign downplays big lead in Iowa polls

“Let the record show, we don’t just complain about public polls that are bad for us. These 2 Iowa polls are great for us and crazy wrong,” Hillary for America communications director Jen Palmieri said in a tweet Tuesday afternoon.

On Tuesday, Iowa Democrats showed Clinton to be the clear favorite among potential voters. According to the Monmouth poll Clinton leads Sanders by 41 percentage points with 65 percent of the vote.

Similarly, in the Loras poll 61 percent of likely Democratic voters said they’d choose Clinton. Although most polls that have come out of Iowa during the primary lead-up have shown Clinton in the front of the pack, these numbers are extraordinarily high.

Clinton’s unusually high poll numbers come after her strong performance at the first Democratic debate, Joe Biden forgoing a run at the nomination, both Lincoln Chafee and Jim Webb dropping out of the Democratic primary and Clinton’s testimony in front of the House Select Committee on Benghazi.

Clinton's 41 pt edge in Monmouth IA is bc the frame is wayyy too narrow: *reg* D who vtd in last 2 primary. That's not a caucus electorate

— Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) October 27, 2015

Some polling experts think the latest polls show too great a lead.

The Clinton camp apparently agrees.

“I think the Clinton campaign might be concerned about setting expectations so high that they’re unreachable. There’s a sense that Iowa is wired for more of an outsider candidate than she is,” said political strategist Nathan Gonzales.

Sanders has generally been in second place in Iowa, but some polls have found him gaining and even leading slightly.

Gonzales added that the Clinton campaign may also be taking precaution to prevent the next round of polling from being a disappointment, explaining that because of today’s Iowa polls, “even if her margin is cut and half and she’s winning by a wide margin [in the next poll], people will wonder what happened.”