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HORIST: The numbers game in Iowa bodes ill for Biden

HORIST: The numbers game in Iowa bodes ill for Biden

As the first contest in the presidential campaign season, Iowa gets a disproportionate amount of attention and an excessive degree of importance.  For months before the Iowa caucuses, every hoedown, picnic and county fair in the Hawkeye State gets maximum media coverage as every presidential wannabe shows up in plaid flannel shirts and blue jeans to flip pork chops on the grill and eat corn on the cob like it is a harmonica.

Iowa is an important state, in that regard, but not a bellwether.   As a caucus state, the results are considered a bit less reliable as a future indicator than primaries where people vote at their polling places. Iowa’s importance fades soon after the results of the caucuses are reported – but for now, it is the center of attention.

At this point, we can only make judgments on the polling numbers.  It is like being in the second inning of a baseball game.  We can report on the action on the field, but not how the game will end.

We do have some news in the latest Des Moines Register/CNN  Iowa poll.  For the first time, Senator Elizabeth Warren has inched ahead of the establishment front-runner former Vice President Joe Biden with 22 and 20 percent of the vote respectively.  It is well within the margin-of-error, but a breakthrough for Warren regardless.

More important than the actual numbers is the fact that Warren seems to have “the big mo” – momentum.  She has moved up by seven points – from 15 percent.  Biden actually dropped from 23 percent in the previous poll.

There is evidence to suggest that Warren is now the one who will coalesce the radical left vote that dominates the Democratic Party these days.  Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has dropped from 16 to 11 percent in this poll – and that is about one-third of the support he enjoyed in some of the earier polls.

It was always a question as to whether Warren – as the happy warrior — or Sanders – as the irascible curmudgeon — would become the champion of the left.  Right now, it looks like Warren is winning with a 35 to 15 percent lead over Sanders among the left-leaning voters.  This likely means that the Sanders’ campaign is done … kapoot … fini.  With Warren topping Biden – and polls indicate that she COULD beat Trump – the Sanders’ campaign has no areas of growth.

Warren, Biden and Sanders are the only three candidates who are in double-digits in Iowa at this moment.  That is very significant since virtually any candidate below ten percent is an also-ran at this point.

For those struggling to make the stage at the next Democrat debate and or trying to command time on the evening news, in appears fame and political correctness matter.  Cory Booker and Kamala Harris get a lot of attention from the press even as he languishes around three percent and she has been Whack-a-Moled to around six percentage points.  They now rank with folks like Congressman Tim Ryan, Congressman John Delany and Montana Governor Steve Bullock, who garner much less attention.  Booker and Harris.  Apart from the top three, the numbers for the rest of Democrat presidential candidates hover around the margin of error.

If there is anything to be drawn from these early statistics and trends it may be confirmation of what we have predicted for months — that Biden is not – and never has been – a long distance runner.  The real question now is who will rise to be Warren’s chief competitor in the next few months.  It is noteworthy that Senator Amy Klobuchar has gained as Biden slips.  Will she become the less-than-radical-left alternative to Biden?  Stay tuned.

So, there ‘tis.

About The Author

Larry Horist

So, there ‘tis… The opinions, perspectives and analyses of businessman, conservative writer and political strategist Larry Horist. Larry has an extensive background in economics and public policy. For more than 40 years, he ran his own Chicago based consulting firm. His clients included such conservative icons as Steve Forbes and Milton Friedman. He has served as a consultant to the Nixon White House and travelled the country as a spokesman for President Reagan’s economic reforms. Larry professional emphasis has been on civil rights and education. He was consultant to both the Chicago and the Detroit boards of education, the Educational Choice Foundation, the Chicago Teachers Academy and the Chicago Academy for the Performing Arts. Larry has testified as an expert witness before numerous legislative bodies, including the U. S. Congress, and has lectured at colleges and universities, including Harvard, Northwestern and DePaul. He served as Executive Director of the City Club of Chicago, where he led a successful two-year campaign to save the historic Chicago Theatre from the wrecking ball. Larry has been a guest on hundreds of public affairs talk shows, and hosted his own program, “Chicago In Sight,” on WIND radio. An award-winning debater, his insightful and sometimes controversial commentaries have appeared on the editorial pages of newspapers across the nation. He is praised by audiences for his style, substance and sense of humor. Larry retired from his consulting business to devote his time to writing. His books include a humorous look at collecting, “The Acrapulators’ Guide”, and a more serious history of the Democratic Party’s role in de facto institutional racism, “Who Put Blacks in That PLACE? -- The Long Sad History of the Democratic Party’s Oppression of Black Americans ... to This Day”. Larry currently lives in Boca Raton, Florida.

17 Comments

  1. Kurt Walker

    I have said from the beginning that Biden would not finish the race and I stick to it. Joe Biden doesn’t want to be president. Why should he?? As a politician he is on top of the pile and he has never had to take responsibility for anything. I’ll give him to March 2020, maybe sooner, to bail out for one reason or another. Just as before he has collected a lot of money for the party so he has done the duty assigned to him.

    • Aaron

      You’ll be calling Former VP Biden, “Mr President Elect” ! Joe Biden is NO coward and NO ONES LACKY !

      • Joe Gilbertson

        In your dreams!!!!! 🙂

      • mspidge

        You need to take your meds aaron, after he bragged he got the prosecutor fired, I THINK NOT!!!!

      • David Barron

        Your correct, its he sure is suspected of doing exactly what the Democrats are accusing Trump of doing. the quid pro quo. The same with Pelosi’s son in the Ukraine.

      • David Barron

        nananananananananannaanananaanananananaanan

  2. Rich

    BiteMe has earned an Orange Jump Suit after hooking up his druggy son with the frauds they committed in the Ukraine and China.

  3. Ernie Lane

    As long as we’ve had electric cars, the range is still abysmal — which probably means it will never be what it should, which is the range of gasoline-powered cars. Now, if I drive the 600 miles to see my daughter, I drive halfway, take 10 minutes to fill up, and then drive the rest of the way. With an electric car, I drive 150-200 miles and have to do a total recharge — which takes hours, if I can find a recharge station.

    • David Barron

      I don’t see why a small gas powered generator powered motor cannot be installed, almost like a model airplane engine, that can charge a car battery while running along to the point it creates more power than it uses. The gas usage would be absolue minimual.

  4. Aaron

    Joe Biden is the ONLY person in race who CAN beat Trump ! Yeah Warren’s rhetoric “I got a plan for that !” Is all premised on the Dem’s winning back the Senate ! Further more she will NOT admit what her “Change” will cost ! Why ? Because she know’s the moderate and conservative sides of the party will flee her extreme left “Sanders” 40 + year old “Socialist” rhetoric ! Trump WILL sherd her ! In my opinion Trump will use every lie, falsehood, rumor and whatever else he can to send Warren crying back to MA ! You know what ? He CAN do it ! So get off this high you’re on about Warren, she’s a “Paper Tigress”, there’s nothing there except “Yada, yada, yada!”

  5. Randolph Chin-Quee

    I would not vote for the pedophile Joe Biden even if he was the only candidate running for office. Also I wouldn’t vote for poco the fake Indian who is a pale face who speaks with a fork tongue meaning she tells lies and if you believe any of her lies you’re enabling her, also my friends God says thou shalt not tell lies or past false witness on President Donald Trump. And here you have a pack of lying Democrats who cannot finish in third place in a real contest, so they only want to makeup fake stories about a candidate that tells the truth and believes in God, alley lots God Bless America the land of the brave.

  6. Randolph Chin-Quee

    Hey folks I really don’t care if you don’t like what I said but remember we are the land of the brave, and I am a Navy veteran, I believe in God, I also believe that Jesus Christ was here among us and because man was only selfish and greedy for power he was crucified, and rose on the third day according to the Bible. Jesus Christ will come again but no one knows when and no one can predict when that will happen. Anyway I intend to vote for _____*__****** and if you want to know well you can ask God whom will I vote for, happy searching and backing your head on a wall. God Bless America the land of the brave, and also to all of my fellow veterans male and female you will be in my prayers.

    • Joe Gilbertson

      Your comments are always welcome on Punching Bag Post!

  7. Thomas Donaldson

    Can you just imagine Pokahontas representing the USA at a hard nosed meeting with Putin about atomic weapons in Iran? Good grief!

  8. Carl J Bujan

    Any person from any state that votes for a democrat is throwing away all that President Trump has done for us. Ask yourself this what have the democrats done for America and its citizens in the last ten years? Nothing but raise taxes and cater to illegal aliens.

  9. db

    Lets see, the Democratic Line up of fools:
    1. Wantabe Tribe Native Indian
    2. Sleepy Fondler
    3. Socialism Bat crap crazy
    4. Butthead legged
    5. Harriswho

    No wonder the Democrats are in a panic.

  10. David Barron

    If Joe Biden and Hunter Biden are so innocent of corruption and theft of our foreign aid to the Ukraine then why are they fighting the investigation attempt. If I were innocent I would say bring on the investigation. The Biden’s are so deep into corruption, along with the Clinton’s and Obama’s that the American Public would puke if they ever found out the truth.