The Iowa 4th Congressional District race is a tight one. In three polls Congressman Steve King (R-IA) only has a single digit lead over former the former First Lady of Iowa, Christie Vilsack. Two left leaning polls show an even tighter race. Public Policy Polling has Steve King leading Christie Vilsack 48% to 45% with 7% being undecided. Internal polling commissioned by the Vilsack campaign conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research shows King leading Vilsack 46% to 44% with Martin Monroe receiving 4%
Martin Monroe? Never heard of him? Me neither. They polled 400 likely voters on September 22-25 and it has a margin of error of +/- 4.9 percent, and there isn’t any crosstabs on how the sample is broken down by party, etc. So needless to say this poll is highly suspect for the simple fact you have an essential no name polling at 4%. Maybe he’s campaigning hard – who knows? I just know this is the first I’ve heard of him.
The conservative American Future Fund poll has a wider margin, but not by too much. They have King leading Vilsack 48% to 41% margin with a margin of error of +/- 4.9%.
They note:
In the poll, both King and Vilsack hold similar favorability ratings and are very well known by the electorate; however, among those with opinions of both candidates – nearly 80% of the electorate – King leads 50% to 44%. And among those more interested in the election, Congressman King expands his lead to 52% to 40%.
Most notable, among those who are prepared to split their tickets between the Presidential and Congressional race, King leads 45% to 36%.
They also don’t provide cross-tabs or even provide the sample size, so I’m not sure how it is weighted. If I find out that information I will update. Since many of the pollsters seem to be using 2008 models I’d wager the American Future Fund poll is likely more accurate than the other two. Regardless it will be the strongest challenge that Congressman King has had in some time.
On a similar note, The Iowa Republican, commissioned a poll on the Presidential race and they show Mitt Romney leading President Barack Obama in Iowa by 1%.
