Polls show Bernie-mentum in Iowa and New Hampshire

Bernie Sanders’ surge against Hillary Clinton continued on Thursday, with two surveys of Iowa caucus-goers and New Hampshire primary voters showing the independent Vermont senator taking a bite out of the Democratic front-runner’s lead, which remains substantial.

In Iowa, 50 percent back Clinton, while 24 percent support Sanders in the latest Bloomberg Politics poll out Thursday. In the most recent poll commissioned by Bloomberg Politics, 57 percent of likely caucus-goers said they would vote for Clinton, and 16 percent pledged their support to the self-described democratic socialist Sanders.


Meanwhile, Clinton leads Sanders 56 percent to 24 percent in New Hampshire, slightly down from last month, when she held an advantage of 62 percent to 18 percent.

More than 80 percent of likely primary participants in both states say they are backing Sanders because of what he stands for, while just 13 percent in Iowa and 9 percent in New Hampshire said the reason for their support is because they don’t want Clinton to be their party’s nominee or because they want to make a statement to the front-runner.

Among independents in Iowa, Sanders leads Clinton 35 percent to 29 percent, though the margin of error is higher in smaller subsets of the respondents.

Also in the Hawkeye State, Sanders leads in terms of voters’ assessment of authenticity — 47 percent say Sanders is authentic, while just 30 percent say the same of Clinton. In New Hampshire, too, 46 percent of voters said he is authentic, compared with 34 percent for Clinton.

Voters were also more likely to say that Sanders would take on Wall Street, with 48 percent in Iowa and 44 percent in New Hampshire saying so, compared with 30 percent and 37 percent in the same states for Clinton.

At the same time, voters in both states gave Clinton high marks compared to Sanders on foreign policy experience and the ability to get things done in Washington. On the first issue, 84 percent of voters in both states said Clinton has the experience to “navigate a dangerous world.” More than 60 percent in both states said the former secretary of state and first lady knows how to navigate D.C. as well.

The polls were conducted June 19-22 in Iowa by Seltzer & Co., surveying 401 likely Democratic caucus participants, and in New Hampshire by D.C.-based Purple Strategies in cooperation with St. Anselm College, surveying 400 likely primary voters. Both surveys carry a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.