Remember when Iowa was the biggest worry for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race? Good times, good times. A new CNN/WMUR poll in the Granite State shows the Hillary Clinton campaign heading for the rocks, if not already on them. Three months ago, this same poll showed Hillary with a narrowing lead over Bernie Sanders, but now she trails the avowed Socialist by sixteen points:
Hillary Clinton trails Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the race for the Democratic nomination for president in New Hampshire, even if Vice President Joe Biden decides not to make a run for the White House, according to a new CNN/WMUR poll.
Sanders has the backing of nearly half of those who say they plan to vote in the first-in-the-nation Democratic primary next year — 46% support him — while just 30% say they back Clinton. Another 14% say they would support Biden, 2% former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, 1% former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb, and less than half of 1% back former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee or Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig.
There is almost no place where Hillary can plant a flag for a comeback — not even among the one group of voters to which her campaign supposedly speaks:
Clinton trails Sanders across most demographic groups, with broad gender and ideology divides bolstering Sanders’ run. He holds 56% of male Democratic voters compared with just 20% who back her, while the two are much closer among women, 39% back Sanders, 37% Clinton. Likewise, Sanders holds a 56% to 30% lead among liberals, versus a 37% to 31% race among moderates.
The most eye-popping point in these demos are those of women — especially Democrat and Democrat-leaning women. The main predicate for nominating Hillary has been to elect the first female President; it certainly hasn’t been a distinguished record of accomplishment, as no one can point to any specific achievement Hillary has except for sticking around. Even that’s not a fatal defect for a campaign, as Barack Obama proved in 2008, but that’s because he was running as an outsider who promised to change the tenor of American politics, as well as representing a chance to right a historic wrong. Hillary has literally none of those qualities, and the fact that the gender card isn’t even playing on the Democratic side of the aisle should be a huge red flag to her party about the prospects of success in that argument in a general election. And without that, what does Hillary have?
The fall has been quite dramatic overall, too. By June of this year, Sanders had moved from a fringe gadfly to a legitimate challenger, but still only drew 35% to Hillary’s 43%. Now Sanders is attracting nearly a majority of Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire, while Hillary has dropped down to 30% — a 24-point shift in the gap, and a 13-point drop in direct support alone. She only gets 31% in the second-choice category too, leading Sanders on that question (16%), but only edging Joe Biden within the margin of error at 28%. Biden only got 14% on the main question, but the more Hillary falls, the more Biden might start looking like a viable option to the Socialist takeover of the Democratic Party to moderates in New Hampshire.
Interestingly, Hillary does lead on another question asked in this poll. Thirteen percent of respondents chose her as the candidate they definitely would not support in the primary — and no other candidate scored in double digits. Lincoln Chafee came in second at 8%, but Sanders only got 5%. She also leads for least honest of the pack, with 33% choosing her (up from 28% in June), with Biden and Chafee in a tie for second place at … two percent. And remember, this is among voters planning to participate in the Democratic primary.
In short, this has become a disaster for Team Hillary. Hillary needs New Hampshire as a firewall against expected difficulties in Iowa, where she’s never competed successfully and where Sanders’ brand of populism is bound to play well. Can Hillary still win the nomination after losing the first two states? Will Democrats let it get that far before pushing Hillary aside for Joe Biden? Before you place your bets on that question, note well that only 37% of respondents in this poll think Biden should run at all, and 32% say he should retire. That’s not exactly a groundswell for drafting Uncle Joe.
On the other hand, Team Hillary can import women voters from France. C’est notre pays, n’est-ce pas?
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