Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump held a double-digit lead over their competitors among likely primary voters from their respective parties in Pennsylvania, according to a NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Sunday.
In the poll, Clinton had a 15-point lead over Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Among likely Democratic primary voters in Pennsylvania, Clinton had 55 percent support and Sanders had 40 percent support.
Trump, with support from 45 percent of likely Republican primary voters in the commonwealth, led his competitors by 18 points. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) had 27 percent and Ohio Gov. John Kasich had 24 percent.
The primary in Pennsylvania will take place on Tuesday.
The poll surveyed voters from April 18-20. There were 734 likely Democratic primary voters surveyed with a margin of error of 3.6 and 571 likely Republican primary voters surveyed with a margin of error of 4.1.
Should Clinton win by double digits Sanders should send a back channel communique to Clinton that he’s backing off, but staying in until she gets 2026. Then get as many delegates as he can by talking about his positives and not Clinton’s negatives, and use those delegates to influence the platform and VP selection.
I think Tuesday I will go to an opera and listen to a fat lady sing.
And then the proof in the pudding…Is Bernie Sanders a Democrat?..will he help Hillary Clinton
get elected in November…
That’s not how it works, however…regarding the VP selection. Sure, she might do some calculus and think that picking someone exclusively along ideological lines is the way to ensure she has the best chance at winning in the fall…or she might do the same calculus and determine that going with someone based on demographics, age, gender, geography might have an bigger impact. Or perhaps some combo of the above factors.
The important point however, is that SHE gets to do that calculus, not the losing candidate. The difference between Hillary and Bernie is going to be much bigger in terms of delegates and votes, than it was in 2008 between Obama and Hillary. And Hillary did’t make the choice of Joe Biden for Obama’s running mate…Obama did.
Early polling from Indiana shows her with a small lead there and I expect her to get a bump Tuesday going into the May states. She definitely got a bump from NY.