We can’t assume that the Donald is out of it yet
. @ppppolls reporting that 1st day of fieldwork for their next GOP national nomination poll finds support for Trump slipping sharply
— Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) February 3, 2016
On Monday Trump was a 50% shot on Betfair to be Republican nominee. That's now 23.5% pic.twitter.com/4wKemLtmsS
— Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) February 3, 2016
The US pollster Public Policy Polling has a welcome practice of sending out Tweets like the one above to indicate significant trends in surveys some time before the poll is actually published.
The latest does indicate that the huge momentum that Donald Trump had built up ahead of Iowa has been impeded by the outcome in the first state to decide. That refers to a national survey not a state poll and in the five month process to select a nominee it is the latter that matter most.
We do know that Trump had built up overwhelming leads in New Hampshire which, of course, votes next Tuesday. What we need to see are some post-Iowa New Hampshire surveys before we can start to draw conclusions.
There’s a lot of experience from previous White House races that what happens in Iowa can have very little impact on New Hampshire. Remember Hillary Clinton’s comeback in NH in 2008 after Obama’s Iowa caucus victory. He looked as though he was sweeping all before him and then Hillary defied all the polls and took New Hampshire.
If Trump has a good New Hampshire primary then it’s game on again for the property billionaire turned TV star.