It Was Baked Into My Prediction ... But Did I Mix Enough Of It In There?

I'm seeing a bit of consternation from the GOP side, and a bit of ecstasy on the Democratic side, over that Iowa poll showing Kamala Harris leading Donald Trump ... in Iowa.

Trump carried Iowa with 53.09% of the vote to Joe Biden's 44.89% in 2020.

So if Harris really is leading Trump by 47%-44% there (those numbers are within the margin of error), and if the shift really is attributable to women as a voting bloc, then the obvious, but not necessarily correct conclusion, and one I'm hearing from both sides, is that it's all about abortion in general and the Dobbs decision in particular.

My own assumption was that the issue would produce a slight change in favor of the Democrats among women, both as to how they would vote and how likely they were to vote.

Slight, because presumptively most women who care a lot about abortion -- pro-life and pro-choice -- were already voting, and already voting the same way they'll vote this year, in 2020. Since pro-life voters already have what they say they want now, they might be slightly less likely to vote, or to vote on that issue alone; and maybe a few pro-choice voters who were busy or depressed or something in 2020 got all energized since then. But I was figuring on maybe a 1% swing in favor of the Democrats.

But what if it's bigger than that? Did I under-estimate the impact? Well, maybe.

Or what if Trump's other problems with women ended up being a factor even among women who were pro-life, or at least not abortion-centric in their voting? Did I under-estimate the impact of, say, the E. Jean Carroll verdict? Well, maybe.

Or what if this poll is just an outlier blip, an anomaly based on a non-representative pool of voters reached, that doesn't really reflect the coming results in Iowa? That would not surprise me at all.

I will find it interesting if I get Iowa wrong ... again. I had it going for Clinton in 2016 because I figured farmers there considered their ethanol subsidies safe in her hands and weren't sure what Trump would do, simply because you never know what the hell Trump is going to do (he ended up shoveling more welfare at farmers than Hillary -- or Bill -- ever dreamed of, but it wasn't obvious that would happen).

At the moment, I'm trying to decide whether I'll even bother watching the breathless election night coverage tomorrow. If I do, it will probably be on CBS. I don't have any particular presence for that network, but I have a free (with Walmart+) subscription to Paramount Plus, which means I don't have to dick around with my antenna, etc. if I'm interested.