Poll: Sanders surges in New Hampshire

Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders is gaining ground on Hillary Clinton, especially among voters who know both candidates, according to New Hampshire poll results released Tuesday.

The poll by Suffolk University Boston shows about 41 percent of respondents favored the former secretary of state, while 31 percent preferred the Vermont senator.

That gap shrunk dramatically when pollsters factored out respondents who never heard of Sanders. Among respondents who know both candidates, 38 percent chose Clinton as their top choice, compared with 35 percent for Sanders, said David Paleologos, director of Suffolk University Political Research Center in Boston.

"What that tells us is the more Bernie Sanders introduces himself, the higher the probability the race will continue to close," Paleologos said.

About 11.8 percent of respondents had never heard of Sanders, compared with 1.4 percent who had never heard of Clinton, poll results show.

Among respondents in five counties — four of which border Vermont — Sanders prevailed 47 percent to Clinton's 26 percent. The counties were Carroll, Cheshire, Coos, Grafton and Sullivan.

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New Hampshire's geographic proximity to Vermont might give Sanders an advantage in border counties, but political philosophy trumped geographical factors, Paleologos said.

"Remember, this is the area of the state that Howard Dean carried early on," Paleologos said of the former governor and presidential candidate from Vermont. "It is an area that doesn't really care what other people think. Howard Dean was strong in the 2004 primary, so there are a lot of similarities between Howard Dean voters and Bernie Sanders voters."

Some of voters' main reasons for opposing Clinton, poll results show, were:

•"They don't trust her," 12 percent.

•She has "been around too long," 9 percent.

•They are "tired of the Clintons," 6 percent.

Specifically, more than 50 percent of respondents said Clinton's use of a private email server and deleted emails during her stint as secretary of state would hurt her electability.

Less than half of respondents said the Clinton Foundation's acceptance of contributions from foreign governments, along with her handling of the Benghazi attacks, would hurt Clinton in the general election.

There were no questions addressing reasons for opposing Sanders, Paleologos said.

The Clinton and Sanders campaigns did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday on the poll results.

In the poll, Vice President Joe Biden, who has yet to say whether he is running, ranked third at 7 percent, and declared candidate former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley was fourth at 3 percent. Former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb and former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee each received about 1 percent.

Voters indicated health care is the most important issue in the campaign, followed by jobs, taxes, cost of higher education and national debt.

The poll of 500 likely Democratic primary voters was conducted by phone Thursday through Monday and had a margin of error of 4.4 percentage points.

New Hampshire's Democratic primary is set for Feb. 9.

Contact Paris Achen at 802-660-1874 and pachen@freepressmedia.com. Follow her atwww.twitter.com/parisachen and https://www.facebook.com/ColTrends.