Democratic Polls for Jan. 21: State of the Race in Iowa & New Hampshire

Bernie Sanders is leading by an increasing margin in New Hampshire. (Getty)

The Iowa caucus, first stop on the primary tour, is only 10 days today. National polls show a commanding lead for Hillary Clinton, but Bernie Sanders’s hold on New Hampshire polls is increasing. Sanders also has the lead in one new poll in Iowa. 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, 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.

In polling averages provided by RealClearPolitics, Clinton maintains a 3.1-point lead, 46.5 to 43.4, with O’Malley at 5.3 percent.

Iowa Polling Averages (by RealClearPolitics)

• Hillary Clinton: 46.5%
• Bernie Sanders: 43.4%
• Martin O’Malley: 5.3%

FiveThirtyEight, which utilizes factors beyond polls in its “polls-plus” predictions, gives Hillary Clinton an 83 percent chance to take the state, with Sanders at 17 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 70 percent chance to win the primary, with Sanders at 30, well above her RealClearPolitics lead. FiveThirtyEight has yet to update for CNN’s poll, however.

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

Long-shot Democratic candidate marches with New Hampshire leader Bernie Sanders in South Carolina.

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. Also, CNN/WMUR shows a sharp rise in favorability, from 66 percent last June to 91 percent in their most recent poll.

The new poll shifts the RealClearPolitics aggregation of recent polls to a Sanders lead of 11.6 points, with 51.6 percent to Clinton’s 39, with O’Malley holding 2.8 percent.

New Hampshire Polling Averages (by RealClearPolitics)

• Bernie Sanders: 51.6%
• Hillary Clinton: 39%
• Martin O’Malley: 2.8%

FiveThirtyEight also shifts their projection to Sanders, 57 percent to 43 percent, in its polls-plus forecast. In their polls-only model, Sanders rises to an 83 percent favorite, compared to Clinton’s 17.

FiveThirtyEight Polls-Plus Forecast for New Hampshire

The Rest of the Country

Planned Parenthood, headed by Cecile Richards, defended itself against charges from Sanders that it was “part of the establishment.” (Getty)

Wednesday’s 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, 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 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.

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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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