Grassley continues to top Conlin in new poll

By James Q. Lynch 

UPDATED: A poll released May 3 shows Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley enjoying a 53 percent to 40 percent lead over potential Democratic challenger Roxanne Conlin.

In recent months, Grassley's support has been as high as 59 percent against Conlin, a Des Moines attorney and the best-known of his three Democratic opponents. In March he led 55 percent to 36 percent over Roxanne Conlin, according to the Rasmussen Report, which released the results of its April 29 telephone survey of 500 Iowa likely voters May 3.

If there's good news in the race for Democrats it is that Conlin's support has increased since March.

“She's climbed from 28 points down to 13 points down in four months,” campaign manager Mark Daley said. “That's a pretty sizable move especially without even going on TV.

“We have a long way to go, but our trajectory is in the right direction,” he added. 

A Grassley campaign spokesman didn't put much stock in the poll – the overall results or Conlin's gains among women – or any poll at this point of the campaign because of the margin of the +/- 4.5 percentage point sampling error.

All four Rasmussen surveys this year have been within the margin of error of a 55-35 race, Bob Renaud said. Conlin's gains among women could be due to sampling error, he added.

 “Overall, there is really no good news in this for Conlin or Iowa Democrats,” Renaud said. “Grassley is consistently above 50 percent and consistently maintains a double-digit lead. Conlin has remarkably high negatives for a lesser known candidate and her negatives are much higher than Grassley's.”

Grassley's lead over Bob Krause of Fairfield is 57 percent to 31 percent and he leads Clarence attorney Tom Fiegen 57 percent to 30 percent. Only 4 percent of likely voters were not sure of their choice in a Grassley-Conlin match-up and 3 percent prefer another candidate.

Grassley leads the fields in nearly every category including a large margin among both male and female voters. However, Conlin closes that gap to 5 percent.

Grassley enjoys strong support from those who favor repeal of the new federal health care plan. Grassley was a member of a bipartisan group that tried to write a health care plan. In the end, he voted against the bill.

In match-ups against each of the three Democrats, Grassley earns more than 80 percent of the votes of those who strongly favor repeal.

On the other hand, Conlin gets 80 percent support from those who strongly opposed to repeal, while Krause and Fiegen earn 56 percent of that vote.

Grassley attracts roughly double or triple the support of his opponents among voters not affiliated with either major party.

Grassley is viewed very favorably by 27 percent, very unfavorably by 16 percent. Conlin is viewed very favorably by 16 percent, very unfavorably by 26 percent. Krause is viewed very favorably by 2 percent and very unfavorably by 9percent. For Fiegen, very favorables are 3 percent, very unfavorables 13 percent,

At this point in a campaign, Rasmussen Reports considers the number of people with a strong opinion more significant than the total favorable/unfavorable numbers.