Bernie Sanders Pulls Ahead Of Clinton In New Hampshire Poll
A new poll shows Bernie Sanders ahead of Hillary Clinton, but within the margin of error, in New Hampshire. But a deeper examination suggests that Bernie-mentum is a mile wide and an inch deep.
A new poll out of New Hampshire shows Bernie Sanders continuing to surge in the Granite State, and leaves many wondering if Hillary Clinton may have more problems than she anticipated:
Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders has rocketed past longtime front-runner Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire, a stunning turn in a race once considered a lock for the former secretary of state, a new Franklin Pierce University/Boston Herald poll shows.
Sanders leads Clinton 44-37 percent among likely Democratic primary voters, the first time the heavily favored Clinton has trailed in the 2016 primary campaign, according to the poll of 442 Granite-Staters.
Vice President Joe Biden got 9 percent support in the test primary match-up. The other announced Democrats in the race, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee and former Virginia Gov. Jim Webb, barely register at 1 percent or below.
The live interview phone poll was conducted Aug. 7-10 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.7 percentage points.
Clinton is still viewed overwhelmingly by voters as the likely Democratic nominee, but the results suggest she faces an unexpectedly difficult fight to prevent an embarrassing opening loss in the first-in-the-nation primary.
The Franklin Pierce/Herald poll shows that most New Hampshire Democrats are lukewarm to Clinton, despite her campaign’s concerted effort to soften her image and connect with voters.
Just 35 percent of likely primary voters say they are “excited” about Clinton’s campaign, according to the poll. And 51 percent of voters say that while they could support her, they aren’t enthusiastic about her White House bid.
And while 80 percent of likely Granite State Democrats view her favorably, just 38 percent of those say they have a “very” favorable impression.
This poll comes in the wake of a new poll released earlier this week by WMUR-TV that has Clinton only holding on to a six point lead over Sanders in the state, as well as past polling that has shown the Vermont Senator surging in New Hampshire. Sanders’ surge in the polls in New Hampshire began shortly after he entered the race, and ever since it has drawn the attention of political pundits eager to find a story in an otherwise predictable race for the Democratic nomination. To a large degree, it was clear even back then that Sanders’ rise in the polls was attributable to some combination of the fact that he has been a political figure in neighboring Vermont for decades and the latent support we saw in the polls for Elizabeth Warren before it was clear she wasn’t running. Additionally, notwithstanding the surge of interest in Sanders, which included drawing huge crowds to events in the Pacific Northwest and on the West Coast this past weekend, it seems unlikely that Democrats would actually nominate someone that seems more at home in the party of George McGovern than Barack Obama. This latest poll though, along with the one from WMUR, is leading some to wonder if Clinton may be in more trouble than previously realized.
Looking at this on this surface, there certainly seems to be at least some cause for concern on Clinton’s part. Four months ago, Clinton had an overwhelming and seemingly insurmountable lead in New Hampshire over any of her actual or potential opponents. Since then, she has seen that lead slip away to the point where the RealClearPolitics average has her with just a 3.2 point advantage in the Granite State. Additionally, we’ve seen her favorability numbers slip significantly in the wake of revelations about her private email server and the Clinton Foundation. At the same time, though, it’s worth noting that there’s not much evidence of Clinton’s vulnerability outside of New Hampshire right now. Nationally, she continues to hold an overwhelming lead over Sanders and her other opponents in the polls, and the same is true in Iowa, where a new PPP poll has her with a 27 point lead over Sanders, South Carolina, and Florida. She continues to dominate Sanders in the money race as well. Even this poll that showed her behind this poll showing her behind in New Hampshire, although, within the margin of error, shows that the overwhelming majority of Democrats see her as the inevitable nominee. That fact alone suggests that a lot of this Sanders surge is really just excitement about someone who, while he may be saying things they like, is in the end really just a novelty candidate. If even the people who say they support Sanders don’t see him as the eventual nominee, then that suggests that his support is a mile wide and inch deep and won’t last for very long. Hillary Clinton may become vulnerable at some point, but if she does other Democrats will step into the race to challenge her, the idea that Bernie Sanders has a realistic shot at being the nominee is somewhat laughable.
This development doesn’t surprise me at all, for a number of reasons:
(1) NH is to some degree a home court advantage for Sanders
(2) New Englanders have a contrarian streak
(3) Some Democrats want a choice not a coronation months in advance of the convention
(4) There will always be a Clinton Fatigue factor in play
The question to me is, are there any Democrats who, if Hillary wins the nomination, will not vote for her and will shift their allegiance to a Republican candidate?
@al-Ameda: And how many Dems like me will vote for Bernie in the primary to send a message. But only if it looks like the nomination is secure for the most electable Dem, Hilary.
Of course some big issue with health or email could upset calculations.
________
After all, I voted for her in ’08, even though I liked O a lot better. Felt like the Rs would throw more merde at a Black guy than a woman. I didn’t realize they would take a year to figure out their dog whistles.
@gVOR08: @al-Ameda:
I think that summarizes the situation very well. No one thinks Bernie will be the nominee, including Bernie. Very few I suspect actually want him to be the nominee because we’d likely lose. But we don’t dislike Bernie or what he’s doing.
Well, some background on that Boston Herald poll may put it a bit clearer perspective:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/08/12/1411238/-Guess-who-s-behind-the-poll-that-shows-Bernie-in-the-lead
@dmhlt: So this poll was paid for by GOP operatives. Good point.
Claire McCaskill was on Maddow last night pushing her book and bragging about how much money and effort they spent in the GOP primary securing the nomination for her preferred opponent, Todd Akin of “legitimate rape” fame. Wouldn’t be surprising if the GOPs try some ratfracking in the Dem primaries.
@gVOR08:
That’s OK, fair enough after Bill Clinton helped get Trump into the Republican primary which is perhaps the greatest political ratfwck ever.
@michael reynolds:
Pretty much my response as well. I will say, however, that this is not the case among a lot of progressives. By the nature of my work, I’m involved in the left-wing faction of the base even more so than when I did campaign work. They see an incredibly weak Republican field and an economic populist who is surging in popularity (and who is also largely correct in his policy positions); what better time than now to elect a true lefty?
Of course they ignore that Bernie has foreign policy positions about as well thought out as Ben Carson’s, that winning candidates have to have crossover appeal both intra and inter-party, and that both of these factors are more important when a party is seeking a 3rd term in the Presidency.
Fortunately, the primary schedule through Super Tuesday ensures that the left-wing has diminished influence. It’s not until April that most of the states that are liberal bastions come into play.
@Neil Hudelson:
Confirmation bias. Everyone they talk to thinks the GOP field is weak, and everyone they talk to likes Bernie, so. . . Bernie is the latest Gene McCarthy or Adlai Stevenson or Ralph Nader, beloved by undergraduates.
The GOP field is weak in the aggregate. But Kasich or Bush or Rubio could very well beat Hillary. We are quite likely to lose Florida and perhaps Ohio, which means we’re down to Virginia, Nevada, Colorado and New Hampshire.
I believe Bernie Sanders personifies the id of the Democratic Party base much as Donald Trump personifies the id of the Republicans. And this is a good thing.
Over time, equilibrium will be restored and the id won’t end up running the show in either case. But for now, it is extremely valuable for the public at large (and whatever true independents there are) to see such stark illustration of what ideas most animate the core of the respective parties.
@Scott F.:
I agree. At their core Democrats want better care taken of the working class, a cleaner environment, a rational response to global warming and fewer wars.
Republicans want to grab their guns and shoot Mexicans swimming the Rio Grande.
I would honestly be surprised if Sanders doesn’t perform reasonably well in New Hampshire. That’s never been a looming problem for him. It’s home turf for him, so to speak.
His problems come in SC & NV, then in the Super Tuesday states.
Bernie is on to something with his ideas to help the middle class and seniors. He needs to continue to push this. And not give up his microphone and stage to anyone.
Bernie is hard not to like, the opposite of Hillary. But Hillary has experience, a large organization, and knows Washington.
I’ll probably vote for Bernie in the primary simply because I like some of his ideas and I don’t think Hillary should have it her own way.
And after Nader’s little escapade, only the most brain-damaged of Dems are going to push Bernie to go third-party.
@michael reynolds: This is the thing that I can’t follow about how their thinking at the grassroots works. I give you that famous philosopher and sociologist Carlos…Santana who for an ABC news special a long while ago gave us the landmark observation
From personal experience, I can add Seattle-Tacoma, and Portland to the list. From what I understand reading at this august site, he could have just as easily and accurately said “California” and I have every reason to believe that Arizona and Texas are on the same list.
I understand why these people hate Mexicans; what I’m gobsmacked about is why they hate themselves this much.
“Fortunately, the primary schedule through Super Tuesday ensures that the left-wing has diminished influence.” Yes, how sad the demise of the once great lib left in America. This sounds almost gleeful in its disdain of what really Dem liberalism is all about.
And this why there are so many Hillary sycophants on here….the left wing HAS diminished influence as the party of the DLC led Wall Street gang and the Pentagon pimps have taken over the Dem Party with the expected results. More defense spending, more wealth inequality, more Wall Street avarice.
And…then Mr. Reynolds comments, “At their core Democrats want better care taken of the working class, a cleaner environment, a rational response to global warming and fewer wars.”
Then why the hell are all of you so gung ho for HRC is beyond my comprehension when she is certainly NOT the best nominee who would reflect those principles, just look at her support of Keystone, more wars, more DOD base budget spending, Wall Street greed etc.
I am going to be relentless here at every chance I have to call out this empty headed support of a clearly compromised candidate.
Now I know what Bruce Bartlett and David Frum experience when they call out the vapid lunacy of the GOP.
The Clintons are plutocrats that sure are good at pulling the wool over on naive Dems
@michael reynolds:
Not so sure we will lose Florida. The GOP will need 47% of Hispanics to vote for them presuming they get the number of whites Romney got. http://www.latinodecisions.com/blog/2015/07/17/the-latino-threshold-in-2016-to-win/
Possible that they will get more whites to vote for them, but with Clinton running rather than Obama, I would not bet on it.
@Neil Hudelson: “Bernie has foreign policy positions about as well thought out as Ben Carson’s . . . . ” Really? He voted against the Iraq war while I recall that Senator HRC voted for it. What’s not to like about his opposition to unnecessary wars?
@the Q: because we’re not going to pull a snit fit and go for whe impossible, which is how all those of you who went for Ralph Nader delivered us into the hands of George Bush.
We have a sizable percentage of the country which has gone certifiably insane. Until that dies out we have to for the possible middle of the road, not the ideal. The most important is to hold firm.
@the Q: Who on this site has been gung ho for Hillary? What I see is gung ho for whatever gives us the best odds of avoiding a Republican in the White House. That seems to be Hillary. So be it.
@dmichael:
Sorry, should’ve just said “policy” instead of adding “positions.” As a vote for or against an AUMF is indeed a position.
Without googling him, can you tell me any of his other foreign policy views in the nearly decade and a half since that vote? Or, heck, can you name one thing he’s mentioned about foreign policy after googling him?
I don’t bring that up because I hate Bernie–indeed, I’d rather in general have him in the oval office instead of Hilary. But this post was about whether or not Bernie can win.
And 51 percent of voters say that while they could support her, they aren’t enthusiastic about her White House bid.
What a ringing endorsement of a candidate who has universal name recognition and has been in the public eye for nearly a quarter of a century! Talk about mile wide/inch deep. LOL
If she gets the nomination, next November won’t be Election Day; it will be “WTF? Why Bother Voting for the Other Republican Day.”
I think it a mistake to view Sanders and Trump as novelty candidates. The country has been suffering from what can be called extreme centrism among both parties for the last forty years; the lack of enthusiasm for establishment candidates should be a red flag the right and left have tired of their respective leaderships. This makes perfect sense as the rank and file have no real reason to support Hillary or Jeb beyond fear of the other “side” grabbing power.
To make it short the center is shrinking for the long-haul and good riddance.
Ralph Nader did not lose the election for Gore. Gore did that by himself.
Also, the strategy of “as long as we field a candidate who can beat wingnuts” thats all that matters is sick.
Christ, I guess you guys think the modern Dem party started with the demise of McGovern since the problem has been to pick these azzhole DLC shitttheads like the dispicable Evan Bayh or the nutcase Dick McAuliffe, the magnificent dunce Chris Dodd? Need I go on? The New Deal lib wing has been destroyed by the neo-lib “yes she’s a corrupt shrew, but she can beat the Donald.” So what if the Dems supported the War, did not repeal any of the Patriot Act, have let Wall Street run amok, never enforce Anti trust laws, have seen the biggest income gap in our history to develop?
Excuse me, thats what the Republicans are good at. Why vote for HRC, when John Kasich will do the same shitt?
Yes Bill is a lying whore monger, but he’s a Dem lying whore monger so all is right as long as you win. Baby boomer ethics at their finest.
Why don’t we just admit that you libs are really 1970s moderate Republicans and be done with it.
At least be honest about it.
PS, I will vote for HRC in the general but with zero enthusiasm, since the only difference really will be a few more kids will get school lunches and a few more solar plants will get built, but on the larger issues of much greater significance, I dare say there ain’t much difference between moderate GOPers and the Hill.
@the Q:
Uh, huh. And what, may I ask, do you think Nader accomplished through his candidacy? How exactly did it advance the cause of making this country’s policies more progressive?
@the Q:
Sill trying to pretend that you’re a Democrat? 😀
@the Q:
Not really accurate. Gore lost Florida by 537 votes. I think we can be reasonably assured that the 97,488 Nader voters in Florida (had Nader not been in the race) would have broken more for Gore than they would have for Bush.
Now, I’m not exactly fan of Al Gore, but had Nader not been in the race, Gore would almost certainly have carried Florida, and with it the presidency, in 2000. At least troll honestly.
@Ben Wolf: I’m interested where you’re going with this idea. I do suspect that a ham sandwich not named Bush could have a competitive race against a tennis ball not named Clinton – and probably a more meaningful debate of the issues.
I don´t know.
it´s very common to see a center-left mainstream candidate facing a challenge from a charismatic candidate from the far left(Specially in countries where there is a runoff). But Bernie lacks charisma and his agenda is very conventional.
One could argue that Democrats do not want to settle for Hillary. Or that they are not completely happy with her.
Trump has more in common with the caudillo/coronel of Latin American Politics than with insurgency politics.
@Ben Wolf:
OK, I don’t know what you’re drinking, but I want some.
Who, among Republican politicians of the last 20 years, would you consider ‘centrist’?
@the Q: To quote another great philosopher king–Mick Jagger, “you can’t always get what you want, but if you try, try, try, you just might find you get what you need.”
Or in the alternative, the least bad choice…
@the Q:
“Hillary sycophants?”
Actually, this presidential stuff is very simple for me:
QUESTION: Which party’s nominee do I want in the White House making nominations to the Supreme Court?
ANSWER: For all the angst and perceived lack of enthusiasm over Hillary,some of which I share, I would take her nominations to the Supreme Court over those of any Republican.
@Pinky: You do sometimes have a flair for words, I’ll give you that.
@the Q: Yes, I will own to being a 1970s moderate Republican. It is the exact reason that I decline to vote for any of the whack jobs on the other side of the aisle. My God! Ten years ago, I suggested to a friend that a vote for Patty Murray was a good idea because at least as a back bench spear carrier for the Dems in DC she couldn’t screw up anything by coming back to hold office or wield power in WA state. Now, she’s one of the sane responsible stalwarts in the Senate. That’s just fwcked!
@the Q:
The existance of moderate GOPers wielding the power to influence anything or do anything moderate I would call “a fact not in evidence.”
Just for the record, I am a borderline Marxist liberal, so its Sooooooooo funny to hear the “not a real Democrat” from some of you. The Dems have lost their way. I am old enough to remember listening to FDR give his fireside chats and actually, gasp, was alive when a true Socialist was the Vice President, and by gosh, there was a Communist Party in America that actually got support.
You all are baby boomer incrementalists and don’t seem to mind the destruction of the middle class as long as you can buy legal weed, take pictures of your food and harangue Catholics for not supporting birth control, Thats what floats the Dem boat nowadays.
The incredible wealth gap, the concentration of industrial/financial/media power, the attack on privacy, the build up of the war machine, the complete disregard of anti trust law enforcement…..YOU COULD GIVE A SCHITT about. And to dare criticize the plutocrats HRC and Bill? By golly, its laughable how much you people defend these two.
I get it. Hitler is bad. We go with Stalin, Just don’t defend Stalin will ya? HRC is pure expediency and nothing else. Her Presidency will be Gerald Ford without the liberalism.
@the Q:
Then you ought to remember that many critics at the time spoke about FDR in terms strikingly similar to the way you’re describing the Dems now. Senator James A. Reed, for example, referred to Roosevelt as a “hired man for the economic royalists” in Wall Street. One disenchanted supporter wrote to the President, “I know the truth and the truth is you have deceived the working man…and favored the big Business and Huge Corporations and let the Poor Working Man go starving, or go to Hell. I loved you and you have betrayed.” These themes were echoed by a variety of critics, from the socialist Norman Thomas to the populist Huey “share the wealth” Long, who called Roosevelt a “faker,” assailing him as beholden to big business and no different a president than Hoover.
FDR was certainly an incrementalist. He never pursued the kind of redistribution the left wanted, he actually practiced austerity in 1937, he scrapped plans to universalize health care–twice–out of fear of the medical lobby, he was in the thrall of the racist South, he didn’t do a thing to advance civil rights, he signed a version of Social Security designed to exclude as many blacks as possible without explicitly saying so. And I haven’t even mentioned a certain, ah, incident involving Japanese-American citizens.
So please spare me this whole “good old days” nostalgic crap about the supposed glory days of the Democratic Party. There is plenty to criticize about the party now and in the past, but it has always been an imperfect mishmash working in an imperfect system, and you haven’t proposed any tangible ways it can be improved.
@al-Ameda: they also enjoy their heroin !
so of course all the candidates will have to make some lame offer of treatment or something to deal with this one-horse states decline into self absorption.
@bill:
Heroin and fentanyl could explain Trump’s lead in the polls there.
Klyopad, “FDR was certainly an incrementalist”…… l won’t even debate any of your misinformed, revisionist dreck from a confused member of a generation that has done zero in moving anything forward. In short you’re a phucking idiot.
I guess banning child labor, instituting the min. wage and social security, recognizing union’s right to organize, the 40 hour work week, unemployment compensation, establishing oversight of Wall Street via the SEC, I could go on and on.
Klyopad, “spare me the good old days” nostalgic crap about the supposed glory days of the Democratic Party…” LIke the days of raising the minimum wage 12 times in 25 years, wages doubling from 1948 to 1973, taking on Jim Crow and de-segrating the south. Championing women’s rights, giving 18 year olds the right to vote. Many of these things took tremendous political courage. Show me yours. What the phuck have YOU guys done except destroy the seedcorn of many of those who came before you.
You guys basically are selfish, indulgent limousine liberals masquerading as progressives.
Again, you are a clueless dipschitt.
@the Q:
Like I’ve said before, you’re the left-wing equivalent of the Tea Party. The fringes of BOTH political ideologies fail to recognize (or more aptly refuse to accept) that this is essentially a center to center-right country.
You have essentially become this, which is why nobody is taking you seriously.
The reality is this – we have a choice between electing Clinton or electing a Republican – none of whom in the present cycle are palatable choices.
3, and possibly 4, Supreme Court seats are potentially in play over the next 8 years. We can have Clinton filling them or we can have one of those unpalatable Republicans filling them. Care to venture a guess how short a life span those things you are railing about will have if they’re filled by the latter?
@the Q:
The reason you won’t debate it is because you can’t–it doesn’t fit into your neat little world of heroes and villains. Nothing I’ve said is “revisionist”–it’s all well-documented facts about the period, which no mainstream historian would dispute. Of course it might not be quite the image of FDR you get in school textbooks where he and several other major figures in our history are turned practically into demigods with no human failings.
And what generation are you referring to? Oh, I see from your earlier post–
It’s not usually a good idea to make assumptions about people you’ve never met.
I’m not a Baby Boomer, I’m a Gen-Xer, just like several other people here, including the hosts of this site. There may even be a few Millennials here. It’s not something I go around keeping track of, since unlike you I’m not in the business of engaging in stereotypes about a person’s demographic.
And those are among the reasons FDR is rightly considered one of the greatest presidents. My point was that he also had significant failings and even his greatest accomplishments involved compromises that outraged purists at the time.
I actually am a working-class New Yorker who has never stepped into a limousine in my life. While I have a college degree, I suffered from the unemployment bequeathed to us from the Bush era, and under Obama’s presidency I have seen both the job-market and health care for people like myself dramatically improve, while hearing leftists whine about how the Dems are all just corporate whores giving payoffs to Wall Street.
Not that I disagree totally with the criticisms. I’m just not a glass-half-empty kind of guy. I plan to vote for Bernie Sanders in the primary. But I’m under no illusion that he has much of a chance of winning, and if he does somehow win and becomes president, I know he will be constrained by Congress from implementing even half of his agenda. No matter who becomes president next year, it’s a near certainty that the House of Representatives will remain in Republican hands, and even if by some miracle the Dems manage a clean sweep of Congress and the presidency, it will require making inroads into red states, meaning their coalition will include several Dems presiding over conservative constituents, making the passage of progressive dream legislation nearly impossible.
I consider this situation unfortunate, since most of Sanders’ ideas are broadly popular and not in any way outside the mainstream of American public opinion. The problem, though, isn’t about “courage” but about the way our system is structured, and about the demographic and political realities that led to this situation. The Senate is skewed rightward because rural, low-population states that lean conservative hold disproportionate power. Many of those states were part of the New Deal coalition, as were most of the Southern states. One of the reasons that changed was the fleeing of white Southerners from the Democratic Party after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Passing that act involved considerable courage on the part of President Johnson, I would agree. But like all courageous acts, it came at a cost. The cost was well worth it, in my view, but it did have consequences, and the fear of those consequences was the major reason why FDR was such a failure on this front.
In other words, some of what you decry about the later generation is a direct result of the reforms of your generation. It’s easier to throw stones than to acknowledge we live in a complex world with difficult tradeoffs.
At Harvard: Gore wins his home state and Nader is meaningless. Gore had immense campaign advantages.
To Klyopad, I give your generation kudos for weed, gay issues, and …….and……well, thats about it.
Destroying the middle class and cozying to Wall Street and basically doing nothing the last 3 boomer Presidents except making the rich richer….again you guys win.
On EVERYTHING else, what really have the boomers done? Seriously? You are even going to defend yourself?
Oh, kylopad is a Gen Xer, that explains EVERYTHING. Sorry, go back to taking pictures of your food. Your generation is on the path of being worse than the boomers.