Amid reports that Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders could very well win in Iowa and New Hampshire, and on the eve of what say is could be a make or break televised debate between the two front runners, a new poll shows Clinton with a 25 point national lead over Sanders. This lead could evaporate if she doesn’t win some early primaries or puts in a bad or perfunctory debate performance tonight. Other polls show Clinton with a smaller lead.
Hillary Clinton leads rival Bernie Sanders by 25 points nationally ahead of Sunday’s final Democratic debate and the all-important Iowa caucuses, according to the latest results from the new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.
Clinton is the first choice of 59 percent of Democratic primary voters, while Sanders gets the support of 34 percent. Martin O’Malley gets 2 percent.
Those numbers don’t differ greatly from December, when the poll showed Clinton with a 19-point national advantage over Sanders, 56 percent to 37 percent.
teBut Clinton’s current 25-point lead contrasts with other recent national polling, including a New York Times/CBS survey, which found Clinton with just a seven-point advantage.
The NBC/WSJ poll screens out Democratic and Republican voters who aren’t expected to participate in the presidential primaries and caucuses.
The new poll also finds 79 percent of Democratic primary voters saying that they could see themselves supporting Clinton, versus 18 percent who couldn’t (+61) — essentially unchanged from December’s 82 percent-to-17 percent score (+65).
By comparison, 66 percent of Democratic primary voters say they could see themselves supporting Sanders, versus 25 percent who couldn’t (+41), and O’Malley has a 22 percent-to-51 percent score (-29).
And then there’s this — which is why Clinton’s performance tonight will be important:
Despite Clinton’s lead over Sanders, the Vermont senator bests Clinton among the four-in-10 Democratic voters who prefer a presidential candidate who brings change to current policies,63 percent to 26 percent.
Is she experienced and realist? Or one more political hack? Perceptions could be shaped by tonight’s debate on NBC at 9:00 pm ET. Another part of the political context: Clinton’s allies are now saying the Clinton camp underestimated Sanders’ strength. 2008 all over again?
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.