Iowa: Tossup between Clinton and Trump in new DeSart model
The DeSart model is included in the econometric models component of the combined PollyVote. The model currently forecasts a two-party vote share of 50.6% for Clinton and 49.4% for Trump in Iowa.
In Iowa, the election outcome is often decided by a narrow margin. Therefore, the state is commonly regarded as a battleground state, which makes it particularly interesting from a forecasting perspective.
Putting the results in context
As a general rule, however, a good strategy is to not have too much faith in the results of single econometric models, because they may incorporate large errors. Rather, one should check how a econometric model's results compare to benchmark forecasts.
Results in comparison to other econometric models
An average of recent econometric models in Iowa has Clinton at 52.5% of the two-party vote. In comparison to her numbers in the DeSart model Clinton's econometric model average is 1.9 percentage points higher.
Comparison to the combined PollyVote
PollyVote currently predicts Clinton to gain 51.4% of the two-party vote in Iowa, which is 0.8 percentage points above the results of the DeSart model. In comparison, a look at the PollyVote national prediction for Clinton indicates that the actual results are 1.4 percentage points lower.