– Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines. I'm John Philips, and this is Poll Position Iowa. (engine revving) (rock music) In the coming weeks, those of us here at PJTV plan on offering Poll Position grape, cherry, and mint. Make sure to collect them all. But in the meantime, yes, the last major polls of the Hawkeye State before the first votes of the 2016 presidential primary are in, so let's go ahead and take a look at the numbers, shall we? The highly respected Quinnipiac University poll shows Bernie Sanders with a growing lead over Hillary, 49% to 45%. Martin O'Malley brings up the rear with 4%. On the Republican side, Quinnipiac shows Donald Trump and Ted Cruz in a dead heat, 31% to 29%. Marco Rubio is a distant third with 13%. Ben Carson comes in with 7%, Rand Paul gets 5%, Jeb Bush gets 4%, Chris Christie gets 3%, Mike Huckabee 2%, John Kasich and Carly Fiorina get 1% each, and Rick Santorum gets nothing. The latest ARG poll is very similar. It shows Sanders leading Clinton with 48% to 45%, with O'Malley at 3%. Trump is ahead of Cruz by a bit more, 33% to 26%. Rubio is again in third place with 11%. Everyone else, they're in the single digits. The Fox News poll disagrees, showing Clinton ahead, beating Sanders 48% to 42%. O'Malley has 3%. Fox also shows Trump winning by an even larger margin, 34% to 23% for Ted Cruz. Everyone else is pretty much the same. A CBS News/YouGov poll shows Sanders barely edging Clinton 47% to 46%, with O'Malley coming in at 5%. Trump beats Cruz again, 39% to 34%. Rubio gets lucky number 13. Everyone else, they're at 5% or below. Finally, the latest CNN/ORC poll shows Sanders mopping the floor with Hillary in Iowa, 51% to 43%, and Trump beating the pants off Cruz, 37% to 26%. Now here's the question, who is gonna turn out? You could have snow, you could have ice, you could have hail, it's Iowa, the weather stinks. Who is gonna actually make the trek to the junior high school gym and sniff in that aroma of burnt meat and oppression to go out and stump for their candidate? A lot of people say, oh, the Trump people, they're new to the process, they're not gonna actually turn out on election day. They're saying the same thing about the Bernie Sanders people on the Democratic side. I take the opposite view. I think the Trump people are gonna turn out, I think the Sanders people are gonna turn out, and here's why. That's where all the energy is. That's where all the excitement is. If there's anyone I think that's gonna take a look at the weather forecast and say, you know what, I'm staying at home, it's people supporting candidates that are at 5% or below. Why are you gonna brave the snow for Carly Fiorina? Why are you gonna brave the snow for Mike Huckabee, why are you gonna brave the snow for Jim Gilmore, if you know they have zero chance at winning, or zero chance of doing better than 5%? I think ultimately those people are the ones that stay home. If I'm right, that's bad news for Ted Cruz, and that's even worse news for Hillary Clinton. That's the position of the polls, but now it's time to make your opinion known. Will Hillary or Bernie take Iowa, and on the GOP side, will it be the Donald or the Ted? Tell us your thoughts in the comment section below. I'm John Philips for Poll Position. Thanks so much for watching. (engine revs) (rock music)