What did David Brock say today? How communist atheist is Sanders anyway? Clinton speaks to Goldman Sachs for charity! Vote for her or you are sexist, racist and stupid! Why do you hate Obama? You're supporting Trump!

Especially with our computerized voting.

Together they can pack a 1-2 punch.

Polling shifts results x% from real votes. Computerized voting further shifts results y% from bad polling data. Allowing for (x+y)% to be stolen from actual results. If they wanted to. Of course, I'm sure they don't want to.

No one reads polls better than him.

Second, Nate Silver would be the first to tell you that his projection is nothing more than a current assessment of the current data. As new data comes in, the 538 projection changes. Under the 538 model, new polls are weighed more heavily than older polls. As a result, the 538 projection is currently influenced by the crazy Loras poll which ridiculously gives Clinton an implausible 29% lead. Between now and the caucus, this extreme outlier Loras poll will phase out of the 538 model and the 538 projection will tighten.

Clinton is the PAC-funded favorite and Sanders is the grassroots-funded underdog. Of course she's the favorite. Sanders cannot celebrate the "upset" in Iowa unless Clinton and her supporters keep pushing the "inevitable" theme.

I don't presume to tell Silver he's wrong. This sounds reasonable too. HRC 50. BS 40

http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/election-2016/primary-forecast/iowa-democratic/

favorite depending on the model according to today's current 538 projection which will certainly change numerous times between now and the February 9 primary).

I have never disputed that Silver projects Clinton as the favorite in Iowa (so does betsmart, predictwise, and most of the pundit class).

But want to keep it as close as possible. She'll probably win IA. Then go with her strengths in the future states.

do you have a case to make, like the intelligent OP? If not, what are you doing here?

will learn the truth soon enough.

The first think that you can do is use averages of the latest polls - that balances out poll methodology problems and the effects of less than perfect samples.

You can see for the latest Iowa poll average on RealClearPolitics.com which currently shows Hillary with a 7.2% lead:

Real Clear Politics - Iowa

By the way I view the both Loras college and the CNN/ORC poll as outliers which balance each other out.

Better yet you can go to the Five Thirty Eight website where it takes into consideration all of the "house affects" and other poll characteristics by weighting the polls base on their historic tendencies and accuracies and then combines all of the recent polls to produce the odds of each candidate wining.

You can find the Five Thirty Eight Iowa site here where it shows that Hillary has a 82% chance of winning in Iowa:

Five Thirty Eight - Iowa

currently factors in the following polls to generate its idea of the current aggregate lead:

CBS News/YouGov (showing Sanders +1)
CNN/ORC (showing Sanders +8)
KBUR (showing Clinton +9)
Loras College (showing Clinton +29)

Which of those polls shows a result WAY outside of the margin of error for every other poll?

The Loras polling is ridiculous, and Loras has been consistently out of the mainstream in all of its prior Iowa polls, and Loras has been consistently out of the mainstream by universally showing Clinton's numbers as way higher than the other pollster's numbers. That is the definition of a house effect. This house effect is not eliminated by the RCP (or Pollster) aggregation so long as the out-of-the-mainstream result is included in the aggregation; instead, the crazy number is averaged in with the plausible numbers.

But don't get me wrong -- I am ecstatic about Hillary setting her expectations in Iowa based on the Loras poll. I LOVE that idea.