New polls show that both the Republican and the Democratic races for the presidential nomination are in a dead heat. In a national poll, Ted Cruz leads Donald Trump by two points, while Hillary Clinton leads Bernie Sanders nationwide by the same margin in another national poll. However, she is only one point up on Sanders in a CNN/ORC poll of Nevada voters.
The NBC News/Wall Street Journal national poll has Cruz with 28 percent of the Republican vote and Trump with 26 percent, with Marco Rubio as a distant third with 17 percent. In January, Trump led Cruz by 13 points. Now, after the New Hampshire primary and Saturday’s GOP debate, that gap has closed significantly. Possible explanations include voters taking a second look at Trump, after which he might bounce back or not, as well as an increase in “very conservative Republicans” participating.
As for Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, The Hill reports that Clinton leads Sanders nationally 44 to 42 percent in a Quinnipiac University poll. Voters overall saw Sanders as more trustworthy, while they saw Clinton as the more experienced candidate.
In Nevada, a CNN/ORC poll has Clinton with 48 percent of the vote, and Sanders with 47 percent. On the Republican side, Trump has a wide lead with 45 percent, while Rubio and Cruz have 19 and 17 percent support, respectively.