At this late date, it is not necessarily a good idea to get overly optimistic when a poll or two puts your candidate on top, but, hey, for the Edwards camp, it is a good news day.
Parsed from MSNBC
John Edwards has clawed his way into contention to win Iowa's caucuses on Thursday in the first vote for the Democratic presidential nomination, gaining strength as rivals Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have lost ground, according to a new McClatchy-MSNBC poll.
Taken together, this first poll in Iowa since campaigning resumed after a Christmas break showed a dead-heat contest between the three leading Democratic candidates and a volatile clash between the two top Republican rivals here.
"On the Democratic side, the race is about as close as it can get, but keep an eye on Edwards," said Brad Coker of Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, which conducted the survey. "Edwards has really moved up since our last poll. Obama and Clinton have each slipped a little bit."
The new survey, taken Dec. 26-28, came three weeks after the initial Dec. 3-6 poll.
One in five Iowa Democrats say they could still change their minds. The poll's margin of error was plus or minus 5 percentage points.
While the survey shows a virtual statistical tie, it also shows Edwards with some momentum heading into the final days. He's gained 3 percentage points since McClatchy-MSNBC polled Iowa before the holidays, while Clinton lost 4 points and Obama lost 3 points.
Also gaining were Richardson and Biden, each picking up 3 points.
The second tier is particularly important in Iowa's Democratic caucuses, where a candidate can win delegates only if they register at least 15 percent support in each town hall-like precinct meeting. Voters whose candidates don't make that threshold can support someone else.
As of now, that appears to help Edwards.
If all second-tier Democratic candidates fall short and their supporters switch to other candidates, Edwards gains the most, rolling up a clear lead at 33 percent to 26 percent each for Clinton and Obama.
From Fox (I know, its got to hurt)
A Mason-Dixon poll of 400 likely Democratic caucus-goers sampled from Dec. 26-28 found Edwards with 24 percent compared to Clinton with 23 percent and Obama with 22 percent. Bill Richardson polled at 12 percent in the poll, and undecideds formed 8 percent of the sample.Of course, holiday time polling is frequently unreliable and caucus polling is tricky under the best of circumstances, but that doesn’t mean the polling data doesn’t capture trends. It can and often does.
Edwards’ trajectory is up. All the campaigns agree on this. He is the only candidate who has competed in Iowa before and the only one with organizers who’ve demonstrated an ability to cut deals on caucus night to garner support from candidates who don’t meet the 15 percent viability threshold. For instance, in 2004, supporters of Dennis Kucinich went for Edwards, propelling him into second place. He later became the vice presidential nominee.
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