Iowa: DeSart & Holbrook model shows Clinton in the lead
The DeSart & Holbrook model published an updated prediction of the election result. According to the model, Clinton will receive 50.9% of the two-party vote share in Iowa, while Trump will win 49.1%. In comparison, on October 25, Clinton was predicted to collect only 50.8% of the vote.
In Iowa, the election outcome is often close. Therefore, the state is commonly viewed as a purple state, which makes it particularly interesting from a forecasting perspective.
Putting the results in context
In general, however, a good strategy is to not have too much faith in the results of single models, since they can incorporate large errors. Rather than trusting the results from single models, forecasting research recommends to consult combined models or, even better, a combined forecast that uses forecasts from different methods, each of which uses different data.
Results compared to the combined PollyVote forecast
The current PollyVote foresees Clinton to gain 50.5% of the two-party vote in Iowa. The results of the DeSart & Holbrook model for Clinton are thus 0.4 percentage points above the combined PollyVote in Iowa.