Clinton one voter at a time strategy pays off in poll lead

CORALVILLE - Not that she would notice - because she doesn't follow polls, but Hillary Clinton has regained the lead in Iowa in the race for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.

'You know, I know you hear this from people like me who are running for office, but I really don't pay attention to the polls,” Clinton said when asked about recent polls showing double-digit leads - as much as 41 percentage points, in one case - over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

'I didn't pay attention to them two months ago” when she trailed Sanders 41 percent to 40 percent in Iowa 'and I'm not paying attention to them now,” Clinton said Tuesday after a rally in Coralville.

If she was paying attention, Clinton would see she leads Sanders 46 percent to 32 percent with former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley polling 5 percent and 17 percent of likely caucusgoers undecided, according to a poll conducted for KBUR-AM radio in Burlington and Monmouth College.

'Clinton enjoys a healthy lead going into the final three months of the Iowa campaign,” said Robin Johnson, host of the 'Talking Politics” show on KBUR and part-time professor at Monmouth College. 'But she still hasn't sealed the deal among some key demographic groups, including women and seniors.”

Key take-aways from the poll include:

l Clinton does 10 points better among men than women while Sanders' support by gender is stable. Women are more undecided than men by a 2-to-1 margin.

l There is a clear difference by age with Sanders leading by nearly a 2-to-1 margin among voters younger than 34. Clinton leads by a 3-to-1 margin among voters 55-64 and leads among those 65 and older, but they represent the highest share - 28 percent - of undecided voters.

l Clinton leads in all regions of the state except the east central part, which includes Iowa City and the Quad Cities, where Sanders leads 43 percent to 40 percent. O'Malley does his best among all subgroups in the northwest part of the state, where he is tied with Sanders for second place at 16 percent.

For her part, Clinton is pursuing a 'voter by voter by voter” strategy in Iowa.

'It's day-by-day. It's person-by-person,” Clinton said. 'I just get up every day and try to figure out what we're going to do to get more people who will sign those cards, and show up and caucus for me … putting together the real foundation of what I believe will be a strong showing on Feb. 1.”

The KBUR-Monmouth poll was conducted Oct. 29-31 Douglas Fulmer & Associates. It included interviews of 681 Democratic likely voters statewide - 579 by automated calls and another 102 by live calls to cellphones. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.76 percent.