Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is gaining traction among Iowa caucus voters, but still trails far behind former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic frontrunner.
A new poll shows Sanders, a self-described “democratic socialist,” winning 33 percent of likely participants in the Iowa Democratic caucus, while 52 percent said they would vote for Clinton if the Democratic caucus was held today.
The poll was conducted by Quinnipiac University, which surveyed 761 likely Iowa Democratic caucus participants from June 20-29, with a margin of error of 3.6 percentage points.
Sanders still has a long way to go to catch up to Clinton. However, Thursday’s poll shows he has more than doubled his support from a May 7 Quinnipiac survey that showed him polling at only 15 percent to Clinton’s 60 percent among caucus-goers. Thursday’s poll shows the Vermont progressive having particular appeal among participants who call themselves very liberal, who chose him 47-43 percent over Clinton.
The other possible Democratic contenders remain stuck in the single-digits, with 7 percent of likely caucus-goers favoring Vice President Joe Biden (who has not declared a presidential run), 3 percent choosing former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, 1 percent supporting former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb (who is expected to announce his candidacy in the days to come) and statistically 0 percent behind former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee.
And in New Hampshire he’s almost even with Clinton…and last night he had 10,000 people show up for his latest rally- they had to move it to a stadium…which was filled to the rafters with people.
Is Hillary going to get “Obama-ed” again?
No. They learned their lesson with their (insanely unstrategic) response to Obama in '08–e.g., “tell Bill to shut the f&ck up about any primary challengers”. What HRC’s people have been doing is treating Bernie as a “respected voice in the public discourse” and thus avoiding alienating voters for the general. If they continue to do that–to strategically take the high road–Bernie can only help HRC by providing useful (and heartfelt) cover to her left.
The people most excited about Bernmentum seem to be the GOP and the horse-race punditocracy. Hopefully the Democratic base will have its feel good moment with Bernie and then come to their senses.
The media just wants something to talk about. Most of us like what Bernie talks about. Most of us also know that Bernie is unelectable in a general. He’ll be good for the debates in articulating parts of the Democratic Party’s platform that makes the activist base very happy and she’ll adopt a good bit of it for the general.