Trump Regains Lead Over Cruz in Iowa, Clinton Barely Leads Sanders: Poll
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Donald Trump surged past Ted Cruz in Iowa, while Hillary Clinton is holding a three-point lead over Bernie Sanders, according to the final Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics poll before the Iowa caucuses.
Trump captures the support of 28 percent of likely caucus-goers, compared to 23 percent for Cruz, 15 percent for Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and 10 percent for former neurosurgeon Ben Carson.
On the Democratic, the data shows Clinton up over Sanders 45 to 42 percent, with just three percent for former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley.
The survey from highly-respected pollster Ann Selzer comes just about 48 hours before voters will meet at the state's 1,681 precincts for Monday night's caucuses, NBC News reported on Sunday.
try because of its record of accurately predicting past contests. Selzer forsaw Barack Obama's victory over Hillary Clinton in the 2008 caucuses, and she pegged Rick Santorum's late surge over Mitt Romney in 2012.
The poll was conducted January 26-29, and the margin of error is four percentage points.
The poll shows a continuing slide for Cruz, who bested Trump by 10 points in the same poll in December. In early January, he led the real estate mogul by three points.
Trump's supporters are also the most set in their choice, with 71 percent saying their mind is made up to support him on Monday. That's compared to 61 percent for Cruz and 47 percent for Rubio.
As Cruz rose in the polls through December, Trump began launching attacks against the Texas senator, targeting his birth in Canada, questions over his support for a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants and criticism for taking out loans from Goldman Sachs and Citibank for his 2012 senate campaign.
Last week, after Trump bailed on the GOP's final Iowa debate, Cruz challenged Trump to a debate that would be "90-minutes, Lincoln-Douglas, mano-a-mano, Donald and me."
The new poll shows that 24 percent of Republican caucus-goers approved of Trump skipping the debate, 29 percent disapproved, and 46 percent said that Trump's decision made no difference.
The topline Iowa results for the Democratic race are largely consistent with the previous poll's findings, which showed Clinton leading Sanders by two points.
Unlike in 2008, when a majority of participants in the caucuses attended for the first time, just a third of likely attendees in this survey are first-time caucus-goers. Those voters lean heavily towards Sanders.
And more than eight-in-ten Clinton supporters say they have made up their minds to support her on Monday night.
