Hillary Clinton must be feeling the Bern after a new poll placed Bernie Sanders ahead of her in the New Hampshire primary by 27 points. The WMUR/CNN poll has Sanders leading with 60 percent of the vote to Clinton’s 33 percent.
According to ABC News, Sanders has gained 10 percentage points in this poll, while Clinton has dropped 7 percent since mid-December. In other New Hampshire polls, the two are essentially tied. Clinton still leads by double digits in national polls, underscoring her electability in the general election, yet Sanders also leads in Iowa.
Sanders is doing well in Iowa and New Hampshire (the first two primary races of the election season), which has spooked the Clinton campaign. Notably, they sent Clinton’s daughter Chelsea to New Hampshire to attack Bernie Sanders’ healthcare plan. This appears to have backfired, with the Sanders campaign raising $3.1 million after Clinton stepped up the negative attack against him in recent weeks.
This latest poll further indicates that Sanders is now a legitimate threat to Clinton’s frontrunner status. The ABC News article even quotes an expert as saying that people support Sanders deep down: “Their heads are very clearly saying vote for Clinton. That’s a responsible vote. But their hearts are saying vote for Bernie.”
If Sanders can paint himself as a viable general election candidate, then it might not just be Iowa and New Hampshire that will worry Clinton.
(Via ABC News)