Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers are continuing to emulate the demographic changes of many New York seniors in the wintertime: they’re going south. Her once whopping lead over Sen. Bernie Sanders has now shrunk to 10 points, and the Hillary-is-electable argument is starting to look bleak since poll number now show most GOPers who’d run against her leading.
The biggest leakage? Her support among women. Look for this poll to create a spark re-thinking and re-calibrating ASAP:
Hillary Clinton’s lead in the race for the Democratic nomination has fallen to just 10 points, and at the same time, her advantage in hypothetical general election matchups against the top Republican contenders has vanished, a new CNN/ORC poll has found.
The new poll finds Clinton with 37% support among Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters, down 10 points since August, followed by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders at 27% and Vice President Joe Biden at 20%. Sanders’ support is about the same as it was in August, making Biden the only candidate to post significant gains in the last month. His support is up 6 points in the last month as he weighs making a run for the presidency.
Behind the top three, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley holds 3%, former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb is at 2% and former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee logs less than 1% support.
In the general election matchups, Clinton trails former neurosurgeon Ben Carson by a significant margin (51% Carson to 46% Clinton among registered voters) while running about evenly with both former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (49% Bush to 47% Clinton) and businessman Donald Trump (48% back each).
Don’t expect the campaign to be run the same way from hereon in. These kind of numbers will create (negative, concerned) buzz among donors, further spur on the crowds and media attention that Sanders gets, and give increase the call for Biden to enter the race.
And this is the number that should really concern Clinton in this poll:
The shift away from the former secretary of state stems from shrinking support among women. Clinton’s advantage among women has disappeared in matchups against Bush and Carson. Facing Trump, Clinton still carries women by a large, though tighter, margin. In August, 60% of women favored Clinton to 37% for Trump, but that’s narrowed slightly to 55% Clinton, 41% Trump now. Clinton’s advantage among women against Trump is fueled by independent women, despite that group shifting away from Clinton in the head-to-head against Bush.
The poll suggests Republican women have consolidated their support around their party’s front-runners in the last month, and are now more apt to back both Bush and Trump than they were a month ago. At the same time, the near-universal support for Clinton among Democratic women has softened slightly, bringing it more in-line with her support among Democratic men.
With Biden’s consideration of a run for the White House gaining attention, the poll finds he outperforms Clinton in these hypothetical general election matchups, topping Bush and Trump while falling just slightly behind Carson.
Meanwhile, Clinton has seen her numbers steady among one ideological group in the Democratic party — but is losing another:
Clinton’s fade in the Democratic race comes as an ideological divide within the party grows into a chasm. In August, Clinton held support from 43% of moderates and 46% of liberals. In the new poll, her support among moderates holds at 47%, while among liberals, it has plummeted to just 23%. Sanders has increased his share of the liberal vote (from 42% to 49%), while falling 9 points among moderates (from 24% to 15%). Meanwhile, Biden has gained ground in both groups.
And enthusiasm for Clinton among liberals has fallen nearly 40 points. Just 29% of liberal Democrats say they would be enthusiastic if she were the party’s nominee, down from 68% in an April poll.
I’ve long contended — and do again — that Democrats have a penchant to get so enmeshed in their ideological battles when the divide becomes wide that some stay home on election day (or vote for a Ralph Nader) to teach their party a lesson. Then when they lose, they complain about the Republicans using their newly-won power (they won) or appointing conservative Supreme Court justices (not illegal or unethical if you win an election). I could easily see some Democrats staying home on election day if Clinton gets the nomination, no matter who the Republicans nominate, if the divide grows– which in 21st century America inevitably also involves great feelings of emotion.
The Washingon Post’s Chris Cillizza notes that it might be time now for Hillaryland to panic. I’ll be blunter: they need to panic now. The headlines and impact of a downward movement will become the new narrative in new and old media.
The latest piece of bad news for Hillary Rodham Clinton came in the form of a Quinnipiac poll out of Iowa on Thursday morning: Bernie Sanders, 41 percent. Clinton, 40 percent. Clinton has dropped 11 points in two months in the state, and now 1 in 3 self-identified Democrats say she is not honest or trustworthy.
The poll numbers come just days after NBC and Marist College released twin surveys in Iowa and New Hampshire that also spelled trouble for Clinton. She led Sanders in Iowa 38 to 27 — less than half her lead in a July NBC/Marist poll. In New Hampshire, Sanders led Clinton 41 to 32 — a 20-point shift from where the race stood in July.
Then there’s this “crowd” shot from a Clinton event Thursday in Columbus, Ohio:
Memo to Clinton-world: It might be time to start panicking.
I know it’s Sept. 10. I know there won’t be a vote of any sort until mid-January — at the earliest. I know that Clinton remains solidly ahead in national polling. I know that Sanders is not Barack Obama. I know that the Q poll has missed before — most notably in the Iowa Senate race in 2014 when it had the contest tied and Joni Ernst won by nine points. I know that Clinton has yet to begin spending heavily on TV in either of the first two early-voting states. And I know that Sanders has yet to demonstrate any ability to appeal to non-white Democratic primary voters.
But I also know that there is now a realistic — if not strong — chance that Sanders will win the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. And that Vice President Biden enters the race and circles the South Carolina primary as his place to take down Clinton (and Sanders). Add those things up and there’s plenty of reason for some stomach-churning at Clinton’s Brooklyn headquarters.
AND:
Now, it’s uniquely possible that we are looking at the nadir of Clinton’s numbers. Her straight-up apology this week for having used a private e-mail server when she was secretary of state suggests that she may finally be listening to advisers (and donors) who see the issue causing major erosion in her numbers. She will heavily outspend Sanders — on TV and in on-the-ground staff — between now and the Iowa caucuses. She remains a favorite to become the Democratic nominee. If you are betting man or woman, she’s (still) your person.
But, the monthly release of e-mails she sent at the State Department will continue through the rest of this year, keeping the issue swirling in the news. And momentum, once lost, is very hard to get back. All of the momentum is with Democratic candidates not named “Hillary Clinton” at the moment. It’s got to be a nervy time around Clinton HQ.
Forget conventional wisdom about both parties.
This lady has not even started to sing.
graphic via shutterstock.com<
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.