Democratic Polls for Jan. 20: State of the Race in Iowa & New Hampshire

Bernie Sanders, here at a Martin Luther King, Jr. Day rally in Birminham, Alabama, is leading in New Hampshire and close in Iowa. (Getty)

We’re only 11 days from the Iowa caucus, and each new day is critical. National polls show a commanding lead for Hillary Clinton, but a new poll from New Hampshire shows widening daylight between Bernie Sanders and Clinton. Meanwhile, Iowa polls show a slight edge in Clinton’s favor, with Martin O’Malley far behind in all three races. The betting markets (according to PredictWise) and Iowa FiveThirtyEight forecasts strongly favor Hillary despite the tight polling margin in the state.

Here’s a look at the state of the race:

Iowa

Hillary Clinton, here campaigning in South Carolina, leads by a tight margin in Iowa. (Getty)

The Des Moines Register Iowa Poll shows Clinton with just a 2-point lead, 42 percent to 40 percent for Sanders, with Martin O’Malley at 4 percent. Since the most recent Register poll, Hillary has dipped 6 points, with Sanders gaining 3, meaning that Hillary’s supporters are re-evaluating the race rather than converting to Sanders. A potential pitfall for Sanders: more than one quarter of his support comes from the three counties holding the University of Iowa, Iowa State University, and the University of Northern Iowa. While the closeness of this Iowa race is often compared to the 2008 surge that led Obama to victory in a state Clinton had controlled through most of the race, this could be a key difference: in that year’s January 3 caucus, college students were on break and caucused in their home counties. Since delegates are assigned in Iowa based on precincts instead of overall voter percentages, so much of Sanders’s support may mean far fewer delegates than his polling numbers would suggest.

In polling averages provided by RealClearPolitics, Clinton maintains a 4-point lead, 46.8 to 42.8, with O’Malley at 5.2 percent.

Iowa Polling Averages (by RealClearPolitics)

• Hillary Clinton: 46.8%
• Bernie Sanders: 42.8%
• Martin O’Malley: 5.2%

FiveThirtyEight, which utilizes factors beyond polls in its “polls-plus” predictions, gives Hillary Clinton an 82 percent chance to take the state, with Sanders at 18 percent and O’Malley at less than 1 percent. (Due to rounding, the sum of the averages exceeds 100.) In its polls-only forecast, which doesn’t use eactra factors but weights the polls according to methodology and past accuracy, gives Clinton a 66 percent chance to win the primary, with Sanders at 34, well above her RealClearPolitics lead.

FiveThirtyEight Polls-Plus Forecast for Iowa

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

Martin O’Malley, here campaigning in South Carolina, is a long shot for the nomination. (Getty)

A new poll by CNN/WMUR shows Sanders with a 27-point lead over Clinton, 60 percent to 33 percent, with O’Malley taking 1 percent. In an MSNBC interview, a Clinton staffer dismissed the poll as “an outlier,” not entirely incorrectly: Sanders’s lead is almost double his highest in other recent polls. However, it does follow a trend where no New Hampshire poll since January 6 shows a Sanders lead.

The new poll shifts the RealClearPolitics aggregation of recent polls to a Sanders lead of 11.4 points, with 51.2 percent to Clinton’s 39.8 with O’Malley holding 3 percent.

New Hampshire Polling Averages (by RealClearPolitics)

• Bernie Sanders: 51.2%
• Hillary Clinton: 39.8%
• Martin O’Malley: 3%

FiveThirtyEight also shifts their projection to Sanders, 63 percent to 37 percent, in its polls-plus forecast. In their polls-only model, Sanders rises to an 85 percent favorite, compared to Clinton’s 15.

FiveThirtyEight Polls-Plus Forecast for New Hampshire

The Rest of the Country

The Democratic Presidential primary field at Sunday’s debate. (Getty)

A new 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, the new 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%

While FiveThirtyEight does not keep a national prediction and isn’t using their polls-plus model for South Carolina or Nevada due to a lack of sufficient recent polling, their weighted polling averages put Clinton on top, 53.4 percent to 26.7 percent in South Carolina and 50.2 percent to 28.2 percent in Nevada. Again, these votes are more than one month away, and a lot can change between now and then.

The betting markets aggregated by PredictWise show Clinton falling 3 points to an 82 percent favorite to win the Democratic nomination. Sanders rose 3 points to 17 percent, with Martin O’Malley staying at 1 percent.

News of the Day

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

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