‘Psyop’ polls and the Iowa Caucuses – Washington Examiner

The political press corps gets very excited about the Des Moines Register poll. Some journalists refer to it as the gold standard of Iowa polls, even though it has had its troubles in recent years. The final edition of the poll sets powerful expectations for what is going to happen on caucus night.

That final edition was released Saturday evening, 48 hours before the Republican presidential caucuses. In it, Donald Trump leads the field with 48% of those surveyed down just a little bit since the last Register poll in early December. In that earlier poll, Ron DeSantis was in second place with 19%, but he has now fallen to third place with 16%. Second place has been taken over by Nikki Haley, who moved from 16% in December to 20% now. 

So the short version is: Trump still way ahead, Haley up to second, DeSantis down to third. Despite the change of a few points in second place, what s striking is how stable the race has been for month after month. The Register has done four caucus polls August, October, December, and now. Trump s measurement in those four polls has been 42-43-51-48. DeSantis s measure in the four polls has been 19-16-19-16. Only Haley has shown notable growth, going 6-16-16-20, but as the new second-place candidate, her support is still less than half of Trump s.

via www.washingtonexaminer.com

Byron York.