Iowa: Clinton and Trump neck-and-neck in latest DeSart model
The DeSart model published an updated prediction of the election result. According to the model, Clinton will obtain 50.6% of the two-party vote share in Iowa, while Trump will win 49.4%. In comparison, on August 14, Clinton was predicted to gain only 49.4% of the vote.
Historically, Iowa has been a battleground state, in which neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have had overwhelming support to clinch that state's electoral college votes. Therefore, predictions here are of particular interest.
Putting the results in context
In general, however, you should not have too much faith in the results of single econometric models, as they sometimes contain large errors. Rather than relying on results from single econometric models, we recommend to look at combined econometric models or, even better, the combined PollyVote forecast that relies on forecasts from different methods, each of which draws upon different data.
Comparison to other econometric models
Looking at an average of Iowa econometric models, Clinton's current two-party vote share is at 52.5%. This value is 1.9 percentage points higher than her corresponding numbers in the DeSart model.
Comparison to the combined PollyVote
The results of the DeSart model for Clinton are thus 0.9 percentage points below the combined PollyVote, which at the moment predicts a value of 51.5% in Iowa. In comparison, a look at the PollyVote national prediction for Clinton shows that the actual results are 2.4 percentage points lower.