Veteran Iowa political reporter/columnist David Yepsen writes today:

Democratic prospects are very good, but some Democrats seem overconfident. Polls aren't predictors, and they can close rapidly in the final days of a campaign.

In Iowa, the much ballyhooed Democratic absentee-ballot program isn't producing the results it produced in the last mid-term election. Democratic strategists still think they'll produce 10,000 to 15,000 more absentee votes than Republicans do, but that's not a comfortable margin heading into Election Day, when Republicans have the superior get-out-the-vote operation.

In his last column, however, Yepsen pointed to the new poll by Center For Rural Strategies showing significant deterioration of GOP standing among rural voters. The poll surveyed rural voters "41 contested U.S. House races"and found Democrats candidates preferred by a 52-39 margin over Republicans. That number was 45-45 last month, according to the survey.

Incidentally, this is the kind of survey that Jay Cost referred to this way:

As a method, I find this "polling of the X most vulnerable races" to be quite suspect. Not in and of itself, but rather because it inclines one to draw race-by-race inferences. But these sorts of inferences cannot be drawn. At all. I view polls like this as akin to entrapment - they are goading you into making an inferential error.

That isn't to say the thrust of the poll isn't accurate - it may indeed be that Republican support among rural voters is sinking this year - only that without looking at the data on individual races it's impossible to say how such a lack of support might manifest itself and what electoral impact it may or may not have seven days from now.