This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Donald Trump leads Texas senator Ted Cruz by five points in the Republican presidential nominating race in Iowa, just two days before the state’s caucuses, according to a gold standard Des Moines Register–Bloomberg News poll published on Saturday evening.

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton lead Des Moines Register poll as Iowa caucus approaches - live Read more

On the Republican side, the poll had Trump at 28 points and Cruz at 23 points, with Florida senator Marco Rubio at 15 points and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson at 10.

On the Democratic side, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton led Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, 45-42, according to the poll, which surveys about 400 likely caucus-goers.

The poll is known for picking up on Iowa election dynamics that outsiders miss. This time the dynamic is that Clinton remains strong and Trump has fought off a challenge from Cruz.

Clinton was six points ahead of Sanders in the same poll in December, but only two points ahead of him earlier this month.



On the Republican side, the poll had Cruz up three points on Trump earlier this month – reflecting a much tighter race than in December, when the poll had Cruz up 10 points in the state.

There were signs on Saturday afternoon that the Cruz campaign was feeling jittery about the poll. Cruz campaign manager Jeff Roe implied in a tweet that the Register tended to overestimate turnout. Cruz, meanwhile, called a news conference at 6.30pm ET, when the results were to be revealed.

Jeff Roe (@jeffroe) Last @DMRegister Poll calculated caucus turnout as 14.7% of active voters: 284,665. 2012 turnout: 121,053; 2008: 119,200: impt # to notice

The poll is conducted by Selzer & Co, named for its widely admired director, Ann Selzer. Selzer’s reputation skyrocketed in 2008 when she published survey results indicating that Barack Obama would defeat Hillary Clinton in the Iowa Democratic primary, despite polling averages showing Clinton ahead.

Obama won Iowa by eight points.

In 2014, polling averages in Iowa had Republican senate candidate Joni Ernst ahead of Democratic opponent Bruce Braley by 2.3 points. On the eve of the election, Selzer and the Register published what appeared to be an outlier poll that showed Ernst up by seven points.

Ernst won by 8.5 points, and Selzer won an outpouring of praise:

Chuck Todd (@chucktodd) Once again, it is Ann Selzer's polling world in Iowa, we're just lucky to live in it. #iasen

As veterans of the Scottish referendum and the 2014 Republican midterm wave well know, the polls can be misleading. The Washington Post’s Dave Weigel appraised the view from the ground – not from the polls – on Saturday, and registered a bump for Marco Rubio, the Florida senator.



daveweigel (@daveweigel) Until Saint Selzer tells us otherwise, the budding CW in Iowa is that Rubio is moving up fast enough to become THE story, even if he's 3rd.

Selzer has had her misses. She thought John Kerry would beat George W Bush in Iowa in 2004.

“We are not like many other polling firms that say, ‘Well, we think’ – they begin with a guess about what they think the future is going to look like,” Selzer told FiveThirtyEight for a recent profile. “I don’t think that’s science.”