Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders continues to narrow the gap: he’s now withing two points of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and if this trend continues the next big political story will be that he has pulled out front. But will that make any difference? The latest poll:
Hillary Clinton leads Bernie Sanders nationally by just two points in the Democratic presidential race, according to results from a brand-new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.
Clinton gets support from 50 percent of Democratic primary voters, while Sanders gets support from 48 percent. That’s down from Clinton’s nine-point advantage a month ago, 53 percent to 44 percent.
The national poll, however, comes as Clinton is viewed as the favorite in Tuesday’s Democratic primary in New York — and as Clinton leads Sanders in the delegate race and in popular votes.
Indeed, more than half of the country has already voted in Democratic and Republican primary races.
Some of Clinton’s key support has eroded but not drastically (yet):
In the current NBC/WSJ poll, Clinton leads Sanders by 15 points among women (57 percent to 42 percent), though that’s down from her 20-point-plus edge earlier this year
She’s also ahead of Sanders among minorities, 59 percent to 41 percent, but that’s a decline of her 30-point advantage here in past NBC/WSJ surveys.
And among those 50 and older, Clinton is up 62 percent to 35 percent — again down from her past leads among this demographic group.
By contrast, Sanders leads among men by 17 points (58 percent to 41 percent), whites (53 percent to 44 percent) and those ages 18 to 49 (66 percent to 34 percent).
In short?
Clinton is benefiting from the demographic shift; Sanders is benefiting from the generational shift.
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.