Braley, Dems say polls are wrong

Rep. Bruce Braley (D-Iowa) is pushing back on a poll finding him down by 7 points against Republican Iowa Senate opponent Joni Ernst.

{mosads}A host of leading Iowa Democrats joined Braley Sunday in speaking with voters and objecting to claims that Ernst has the momentum before Tuesday’s election.

“You know the only poll that I’m counting on? It’s the poll right here in my gut,” Braley said, according to MSNBC.

National Republicans have touted the Des Moines Register poll — the paper’s final survey of the race — as a sign that Ernst will take the seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Tom Harkin (D). The poll is highly respected.

But on Sunday, Harkin called its latest result an “outlier” that misrepresented the state of the race.

“I’ve been in politics long enough, folks, and in enough races to know that there’s always one poll – they just catch people on the wrong night, or they just don’t do their due diligence in their calling, and we have an outlier. This is one of the outlier polls. It just doesn’t fit into anything we know,” he said.

“That’s not the number we are seeing on the ground,” said Iowa Democratic Party Chair Scott Brennan, echoing Harkin.

Braley’s campaign has said that 420,000 ballots have already been cast in early voting and that they have the lead among those voters.