Donald Trump has overtaken Ted Cruz in the final days before Iowa's caucuses, with the fate of the race closely tied to the size of Monday evening's turnout, especially among evangelical voters and those attending for the first time, a Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register Iowa Poll shows.



The findings before the first ballots are cast in the 2016 presidential nomination race shows Trump with the support of 28 percent of likely caucus-goers, followed by 23 percent for the Texas senator and 15 percent for U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida.



The billionaire real estate mogul leads Cruz among those who say they definitely plan to attend, 30 percent to 26 percent. With the less committed—those who say they'll probably attend—Trump also beats Cruz, 27 percent to 21 percent.



“Trump is leading with both the inner core of the caucus universe and the fringe—that’s what any candidate would want," said longtime Iowa pollster J. Ann Selzer, who oversaw the survey for the news organizations.

Apparently blowing off the final debate like a boss was the right thing to do in the Iowa voters' eyes. If, that is, the media has gotten the final pre-caucus poll more or less right:If Trump does even better than indicated, we'll know that the poll organizations were playing games and trying to suppress Trump's numbers; in the UK, ALL the polls were "corrected" at the very end in order to try to make themselves look less hopelessly wrong in comparison with the actual vote.So, this "late move" may be nothing more than the media bringing the polls more in line with the expected result.That doesn't mean Trump will win Iowa. We have, after all, been repeatedly informed by those on the ground that he will not do so. So, like everyone else, we'll just have to wait and see.The Democratic race is more interesting than anyone would have thought; Hillary Clinton is simply a terrible candidate who can't win an even remotely competitive election. Even liberal voters dislike her because she is a terrible, dishonest person, even as politicians go. If she didn't have the entire weight of the bifactional establishment behind her - note how even establishment Republicans have said they would back her over Trump - she would have numbers that made Carly Fiorina's look good.

Labels: media, politics