Democrats are shuddering at a new poll showing that Bernie Sanders is soaring over Iowa.

According to the Des Moines Register:

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders leads the Democratic field three weeks ahead of Caucus Day in Iowa — narrowly overtaking his closest competitors, who remain locked in a tight contest just behind him.

A new Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom Iowa Poll shows 20% of likely Democratic caucusgoers name Sanders as their first choice for president.

After a surge of enthusiasm that pushed Pete Buttigieg to the top of the field in November, the former South Bend, Indiana, mayor has faded, falling 9 percentage points to land behind both Sanders and U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Warren is at 17%; Buttigieg, 16%; and former Vice President Joe Biden, 15%.

 After all that hard slogging over the last 12 months, from Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, Julian Castro and the rest of the Democrat clown car to win the state, it looks like Bernie of all people, is going to walk away with it.

Which is bad news for Democrats.

Bernie's the one they don't like very much - he's the real thing as socialists go, with no real alliance to the deep state as we see in the Obama establishment. They tried to stop him in 2016 during his long bid to take the nomination from their standard-bearer, Hillary Clinton, something that was found out in the Wikileaks leaks done by Russian hackers of then-party-chairman John Podesta's emails. The Russians have always liked themselves some Bernie.

Yet with all but a few Democratic candidates essentially imitating Bernie Sanders, who has driven his party leftward, for voters, it's a matter of 'why go for the pale imitation.' Mise well get the real thing. The lefty voters who pay no attention to economics or the prospect of running out of other people's money or socialism's long record of failure, would of course find Bernie attractive. And with Bernie the only one who stands for something among Democrats, he's naturally going to be the one voters go for as all of his rivals slip and slide based basically on authencity issues. Harris, Biden, Buttigieg, Warren, etc, all have histories of made-up and exaggerated pasts in various ways, some worse than others. These votes likely think they won't stick with socialism the way Bernie would.

It's definitely a problem for Democrats, what with all the fakery that's taking its favorites down. The Democratic establishment's top seed, Joe Biden, is leading in all overall polls.

But in Iowa, where voter have seen a lot of him, he's in a miserable fourth place. Retail politics has been strong in that state, and the more voters saw of Biden, the less they liked him. Remember that Iowa farmer that Biden challenged to pushups when the man asked Biden an inconvenient question about his son's business dealings? Biden didn't do his cause any favors with that bilious response. Mean and nasty doesn't go over well with most voters. The message from Iowa now is that the more voters see of Biden, the further he will slide in he polls. He may get away with it by keeping a caution-yellow-tape distance from voters from hereon out as the primaries progress. But how on earth is he going to take on Trump.

There's actually a real possibility that Democrats might just follow Iowa's example and embrace Bernie, too, which even worse for the Democratic establishment, means Bernie gets the nomination. They're all having their moment in the sun, of course. But Bernie is at the heart of the Democratic party's direction right now, the guy with the steady ideology, the steady support that doesn't break, and the steady gainer of ground as other Democrat flame out.

Here's the biggest problem. As Bernie surges, Democrats in the down-ballot positions are starting to worry they're going to lose their own seats. Here's what Politico has about it:

A slate of endangered House Democrats is coalescing behind Joe Biden for president as the Iowa caucuses approach — a surge of support triggered by fears that Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren at the top of the ticket would cost them their seats.

 

There's nothing like a scared Democrat worried about losing his seat. This Bernie surge should lead to some Democrat-on-Democrat fireworks, so the rest of us should get out the popcorn.