Poll: Sanders surges to within reach of Clinton in Iowa
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is within single-digits of Hillary Clinton’s with Iowa voters in the race for the 2016 presidential nomination, a new poll says.
Clinton leads with 37 percent support, according to the Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics poll. But Sanders is close behind at 30 percent.
The same poll in May had Clinton at 57 percent with Sanders at 16 percent.
{mosads}Vice President Joe Biden, who has not yet decided whether to enter the race, garnered 14 percent support. He had gotten 8 percent in May.
“It looks like what people call the era of inevitability is over,” J. Ann Selzer, president of West Des Moines, Iowa-based Selzer & Co., which conducted the poll, told Bloomberg. “She has lost a third of the support that she had in May, so any time you lose that much that quickly, it’s a wake-up call.”
Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley got three percent in the poll, with former Sen. Jim Webb at two percent and former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee at 1 percent.
Bloomberg reported that Sanders’ rise in Iowa is powered by enthusiasm from first-time and young caucus-goers.
Saturday’s poll found that 43 percent of voters attending their first caucus in 2016 would pick Sanders, compared with 31 percent who would back Clinton.
It also found that 50 percent of Iowa Democratic voters under 45 support Sanders. Of that group, 27 percent say they support Clinton and 8 percent Biden.
Most respondents are picking Sanders because they are excited by the Vermont lawmaker’s ideas, not just opposed to Clinton, the poll said.
An overwhelming 96 percent said Sanders’ ideas had won them over, versus 2 percent who pick him based on objections to Clinton.
Clinton is the current front-runner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination across multiple polls.
The latest RealClearPolitics average of polls finds her with 47.8 percent and Sanders, her closest completion, at 26.3 percent.
Clinton’s momentum is fading, however, amid voter concerns over her transparency and trustworthiness while serving at the State Department.
At issue is Clinton’s use of a private email server during her tenure at the agency. Critics say the device may have prevented accountability of her service there and jeopardized sensitive national intelligence.
Clinton has repeatedly argued she used the email server for convenience without exposing any national security information to prying eyes.
She announced earlier this month that she is turning the device and its backup thumb drive to Justice Department investigators.
– Updated at 6:48 p.m.
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