An NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll shows Bernie Sanders pulling withing 2 points of Hillary Clinton in the California primary. NBC News reports:
Clinton gets support from 49 percent of likely Democratic primary voters in the state, while Sanders gets 47 percent, which is within the survey’s statistical margin of error.
And among a wider electorate of all potential Democratic voters in California, Sanders is actually ahead by one point, 48 percent to 47 percent.
The demographic breakdown is not too surprising. Hillary wins the older crowd plus women and Democrats. Sanders wins among the young and first-time voters. This poll also shows Sanders winning with Latinos by 3 points. It’s not the first poll to show Sanders with a lead among Latinos but an April poll had Sanders up by just 1 point, 48-47:
Clinton leads Sanders among likely voters ages 45 and older (63 percent to 33 percent), self-identified Democrats (57 percent to 40 percent), women (54 percent to 41 percent), past Democratic primary voters (53 percent to 42 percent) and whites (51 percent to 46 percent).
Clinton also is ahead among those who have already voted, 58 percent to 41 percent.
Meanwhile, Sanders leads among first-time participants (72 percent to 28 percent), independents (68 percent to 26 percent), those younger than 45 (66 percent to 30 percent), men (54 percent to 43 percent) and Latinos (49 percent to 46 percent).
The Real Clear Politics average of polls still shows Clinton with a 7.4 point lead over Sanders, in no small part because of a KABC poll released last week which had Clinton up by eighteen.
A win in California won’t change the overall result for Sanders who would only get about half the delegates and would still trail Clinton’s insurmountable lead with superdelegates. However, Sanders has indicated he would like to ride into the convention on the strength of a win, giving him leverage to demand changes to the party’s platform.
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