Bernie Sanders leads in the latest Iowa polls and has a significant lead in New Hampshire. (Getty)
The Iowa caucus, first stop on the primary tour, is only nine days away. National polls show a commanding lead for Hillary Clinton, but Bernie Sanders’s hold on New Hampshire polls is increasing, and he’s taken the lead in one new poll in Iowa. The betting markets (according to PredictWise) and Iowa FiveThirtyEight forecasts continue to favor Hillary despite the tight polling margin in the state.
Here’s a look at the state of the race:
Iowa
Hillary Clinton, campaigning in South Carolina in this photo, trails Bernie Sanders in one Thursday poll but leads another. (Getty)
Two new polls in Iowa reached very different results. A new poll by KBUR shows Clinton with a 9-point lead over Sanders, 48 percent to 39 percent, with Martin O’Malley taking 7 percent. In other unwelcome news for Sanders, the poll shows that only 5.6 percent of voters polled are undecided, meaning there may not be a whole lot of room to make up ground.
However, CNN found Sanders had a lead of 8 points, 51 percent to 43 percent, with O’Malley carrying 4 percent. Sanders was also the most trusted candidate on the economy, a topic on which Clinton had led in CNN polling since August. CNN, however, also differs from the KBUR poll in showing a much higher portion of completely or partly undecided voters than, at 36 percent. Another notable caveat to the CNN poll: while, like most polls, it controls for “likely caucus-goers,” when it asked those who actually did caucus in 2008, Clinton was the favorite by a 55-38 margin.
In polling averages provided by RealClearPolitics, Clinton maintains a 6.4-point lead, 47.9 to 41.5, with O’Malley at 5.5 percent.
Iowa Polling Averages (by RealClearPolitics)
- Hillary Clinton: 47.9%
- Bernie Sanders: 41.5%
- Martin O’Malley: 5.5%
FiveThirtyEight, which utilizes factors beyond polls in its “polls-plus” predictions, gives Hillary Clinton an 85 percent chance to take the state, with Sanders at 15 percent and O’Malley at less than 1 percent. (Due to rounding, the sum of the averages exceeds 100.) Its polls-only forecast, which doesn’t use eactra factors but weights the polls according to methodology and past accuracy, gives Clinton a 72 percent chance to win the primary, with Sanders at 28, well above her RealClearPolitics lead.
FiveThirtyEight Polls-Plus Forecast for Iowa
- Hillary Clinton: 85%
- Bernie Sanders: 15%
Click the “next page” button below for a breakdown of New Hampshire and national polls, as well as a look at the Democratic primary schedule.
New Hampshire
Bernie Sanders, whose new ad (seen above) began its run in the first two states on Wednesday, is still the favorite in New Hampshire. A new poll by Suffolk University shows Clinton trailing Sanders by 9 points, 50 percent to 41 percent, with O’Malley taking 2 percent. While not a rosy result, it does give credence to the Clinton camp’s claim that the A CNN/WMUR poll showing a 27-point Sanders lead was “an outlier.” However, it does follow a trend where no New Hampshire poll since January 6 shows a Clinton lead.
The new poll slightly increases Sanders’s lead in the RealClearPolitics aggregation of recent polls to 11.8 points, with 51.6 percent to Clinton’s 39.8, with O’Malley holding 2.6 percent.
New Hampshire Polling Averages (by RealClearPolitics)
- Bernie Sanders: 51.6%
- Hillary Clinton: 39%
- Martin O’Malley: 2.8%
The Suffolk poll did not significantly impact the FiveThirtyEight polls-plus forecast, which still favors Sanders 57 percent to 43 percent. In their polls-only model, Sanders rises to an 85 percent favorite, compared to Clinton’s 15.
FiveThirtyEight Polls-Plus Forecast for New Hampshire
- Bernie Sanders: 57%
- Hillary Clinton: 43%
The Rest of the Country
Long-shot Democratic candidate Martin O’Malley marches with New Hampshire leader Bernie Sanders in South Carolina.
Wednesday’s Monmouth poll shows Clinton with a 15-point national lead, with 52 percent of the vote to Sanders’s 37. Compared to Clinton’s 25-point lead in the NBC News poll taken before Sunday’s debate, this poll (with Sunday and Monday included in the polling period) shows a significant gain for Sanders. The RealClearPolitics averages update to include the latest poll shows Clinton’s lead at 13.2 points at 51.2 percent, with Sanders taking 38 and O’Malley taking 2.2.
National Polling Averages (by RealClearPolitics)
- Hillary Clinton: 51.2%
- Bernie Sanders: 38%
- Martin O’Malley: 2.2%
The betting markets aggregated by PredictWise show Clinton at an 82 percent favorite to win the Democratic nomination. Sanders is second at 17 percent, with Martin O’Malley at 1 percent.
News of the Day
- A spokesperson for the State Department announced that the agency needed an extension to comply with the release schedule dictated by a Freedom of Information Act request for Hillary Clinton’s emails.
- Bernie Sanders reiterated on Twitter that his Supreme Court nominees will need to make overturning Citizens United v. FEC “one of their first decisions,” which drew criticism from legal journalists.
Democratic Primary & Debate Schedule
Debate Schedule
Wisconsin: February 11, PBS
Florida: March 9, Univision
Iowa: February 1
New Hampshire: February 9
Nevada: February 20
South Carolina: February 27
Super Tuesday (Alabama, American Samoa, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oklahoma,
Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia): March 1
Kansas, Louisiana: March 5
Maine: March 6
Michigan, Mississippi, Democrats Abroad: March 8
Northern Mariana Islands: March 12
Florida, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio: March 15
Arizona, Idaho, Utah: March 22
Alaska, Hawaii, Washington: March 26
Wisconsin: April 5
Wyoming: April 9
New York: April 19
Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island: April 26
Indiana: May 3
West Virginia: May 10
Kentucky, Oregon: May 17
California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota: June 7
Washington, D.C.: June 14
