Iowa race very close, Obama has slight lead

  • Among the Iowans who said they are likely to vote in the Democratic caucus next year, 27 percent said they would support Senator Obama, statistically indistinguishable from the 26 percent that prefer Senator Clinton and [the other 26 percent for] Mr. Edwards.

    Senator Obama does best with younger voters, getting 38 percent of the support of voters under 50, while Mr. Edwards leads with 36 percent among voters aged 65 and older.

    As in national surveys, there is a gender gap among Senator Clinton’s support. She is the preferred candidate of 31 percent of Democratic women voters, and 21 percent of men.

    But, the caucuses are still months away. And 44 percent of the voters said they were not strongly committed to their choice, leaving open the
    possibility of shifting support.

    The telephone survey was conducted July 26 to 31 with 500 adults who said they were likely to participate in a Democratic caucus in Iowa and has a
    margin of sampling error of plus or minus four percentage points.



I actually agree with M E M that Hillary is the likely Democrat nominee. But the margin is very close, and every one of these candidates has vulnerabilities where they could implode over the next 17 months.

And that's just as true on the Republican side.