Monday, August 31, 2015

First Read: August's 2016 Winners and Losers

First Read is a morning briefing from Meet the Press and the NBC Political Unit on the day's most important political stories and why they matter.

The 2016 winners and losers of August

This past weekend's new Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll of Iowa perfectly captures the presidential candidates who won August and the summer -- and those who didn't. The winners on the Republican side: Donald Trump (who's in first place in that Iowa poll at 23%) and Ben Carson (second at 18%). The winner on the Democratic side: Bernie Sanders, who has surged 14 points since May and now trails Hillary Clinton by just seven points in Iowa. The loser of August on the Democratic side? It's Clinton, of course, whose lead in the Hawkeye State has dropped from 41 points to just seven (!!!) in the span of three months. The losers of August on the GOP side: Try Scott Walker (who is now tied for third with Ted Cruz in Iowa -- the state where he was seen as the clear frontrunner), Jeb Bush (who's tied for fifth), and Marco Rubio (ditto). (Our friend Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report has a similar list of winners and losers; great minds think alike.) What do Trump, Carson, and Sanders all have in common? They're political outsiders who are FAR from your business-as-usual politicians. Indeed, the Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll finds 62% of GOP Iowa caucus-goers and 60% of Dem caucus-goers saying they're dissatisfied with politicians in general. 

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