Shock Poll: As Clinton Visits NH, Sanders Surges

Fresh on the heels of her first visit to New Hampshire after re-launching her presidential campaign, a new survey of voters in the first-in-the-nation Democratic Primary shows former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, D-NY, clearly losing ground to U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT

According to the poll conducted earlier this week, which sampled 500 “likely Democratic” voters on both landlines and cellphones, Clinton received 41 percent of the support to Sanders 31 percent. These figures are a stark change from a poll just a few weeks ago that showed Clinton with a more than 40 point lead against Sanders and other rivals for the Democratic nomination.

“Most political observers felt that Hillary Clinton’s large early lead among Democratic voters would eventually shrunk a bit over time,” said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center in Boston. “But in New Hampshire right now, the lead has shrunk a lot, and this is a much different Democratic primary race than we are seeing in other states so far.”

Other Democrats receiving support in the poll included Vice President Joe Biden at 7 percent, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley at 3 percent, and former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee and former Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia tied at 1 percent. Fifteen percent of likely Democrats were undecided, according to the poll.

The WSJ Washington Wire blog noted that this poll is good news for Sanders and comes at a time when he has been speaking to overflow crowds around the country and showing decent support in straw polls.

Clinton recently came back to New Hampshire after holding a rally in front of about 5,000 in New York City. In Rochester, she unveiled a proposal for universal preschool for all children. Clinton also held a soggy event in Concord at Carter Hill Farm. The campaign also received criticism from both Republicans and members of the press for locking out Daily Mail’s David Martosko, who was the designated pool print reporter for the day, from events in New Hampshire.