Iowa Poll: Clinton leads, but Sanders draws near

Jennifer Jacobs | The Des Moines Register

DES MOINES, Iowa — Bernie Sanders, riding an updraft of insurgent passion in Iowa, has closed to within 7 points of Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential race.

She’s the first choice of 37% of likely Democratic caucusgoers; he’s the pick for 30%, according to a new Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics Iowa Poll.

But Clinton has lost a third of her supporters since May, a trajectory that if sustained puts her at risk of losing again in Iowa, the initial crucible in the presidential nominating contest.

This is the first time Clinton, the former secretary of state and longtime presumptive front-runner, has dropped below the 50% mark in four polls conducted by the Register and Bloomberg Politics this year.

Poll results include Vice President Joe Biden as a choice, although he has not yet decided whether to join the race. Biden captures 14%, five months from the first-in-the-nation vote Feb. 1. Even without Biden in the mix, Clinton falls below a majority, at 43%.

“This feels like 2008 all over again,” said J. Ann Selzer, pollster for the Iowa Poll.

In that race, Clinton led John Edwards by 6 percentage points and Barack Obama by 7 points in an early October Iowa Poll. But Obama, buoyed by younger voters and first-time caucusgoers, surged ahead by late November.

In this cycle, Sanders is attracting more first-time caucusgoers than Clinton. He claims 43% of their vote compared with 31% for Clinton. He also leads by 23 percentage points with the under-45 crowd and by 21 points among independent voters.

Sanders, a Vermont U.S. senator, has become a liberal Pied Piper in Iowa not as a vote against Clinton, but because caucusgoers genuinely like him, the poll shows. An overwhelming 96% of his backers say they support him and his ideas. Just 2% say they’re motivated by opposition to Clinton.

Back in January, half of likely Democratic caucusgoers were unfamiliar with Sanders, who has been elected to Congress for 25 years as an independent. He has jumped from 5% support in January to 30%. Clinton, a famous public figure for decades, has dropped in that period from 56% to 37%.

“These numbers would suggest that she can be beaten,” said Steve McMahon, a Virginia-based Democratic strategist who has worked on presidential campaigns dating to 1980.

“But,” he added, “it’s still early, and Hillary Clinton’s done this before. She knows what it takes to win.”

If Clinton survives the caucus and primary gauntlet to become the nominee, nearly two-thirds of likely Democratic caucusgoers say they’re “mostly confident” she can win the general election. About 24% are mostly nervous, and 9% aren’t sure.

Wild card: Will Biden decide to join race?

The open question is what Biden will see in these results. Will he see a teetering front-runner in distress? Or that Sanders has already consolidated a big share of the support available to a Clinton alternative?

In a May Iowa Poll, just before his eldest son, Beau, died of brain cancer at age 46, 8% of likely caucusgoers listed Biden as their first choice for president.

A Biden bid also would open a two-front war for Clinton. If he were to declare a candidacy, he’d almost certainly get a bump in his numbers.

The vice president saps support from both Clinton and Sanders, the poll shows. Without Biden in the mix, Clinton is at 43% and Sanders is at 35%.

“So, Biden takes 6 points from Clinton and 5 points from Sanders,” Selzer said.

The Iowa Poll of 404 likely Democratic caucusgoers was conducted Aug. 23-26 by Selzer & Co. of Des Moines. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.

Voters shrug about Clinton email controversy

What’s driving Clinton’s downward slide and Sanders’ surge?

“Voters right now are flocking to the angry, authentic outsiders and moving away from the cautious or calculating establishment insiders,” McMahon said.

Clinton has been dogged by media questions and an FBI investigation about whether her use of a private, home-based email server while secretary of state undermined U.S. security.

In Iowa on Wednesday, she said use of personal email “clearly wasn’t the best choice.” But Clinton, who says voters don’t bring up the issue, downplays the investigation as “about politics.”

Selzer said Clinton is right about the unimportance of the email controversy at this point in the caucus race — 76% of her supporters and 61% of all likely Democratic caucusgoers say it’s not important to them. The emails are at least somewhat important to 28% of all likely caucusgoers, with an additional 10% saying the issue is very important.

“The stuff with the emails — that doesn’t bother me,” said poll respondent Craig Glassmeyer, 50, a screen printer from Cedar Rapids. “It’s just being politicized, as well as Benghazi. How could it have been her fault, you know? They really don’t want Hillary in there, and so they’re fighting as hard as they can to block her nomination.”

Still, Glassmeyer is one of the 14% who say they’re not sure who their choice is yet or are uncommitted. He’s trying to decide between Clinton and Sanders, “who may be too liberal for me,” he said.

Meanwhile, three candidates are in danger of not meeting viability thresholds in the Democratic caucuses.

Martin O’Malley, who campaigns on the progressive results he achieved as Baltimore’s mayor and Maryland’s governor, has 3% support.

Jim Webb, a former U.S. senator from Virginia who stresses his military experience as a Marine and later a Pentagon official under President Ronald Reagan, is at 2%.

And Lincoln Chafee, an ex-Republican and former Rhode Island governor with an anti-war message, gets 1%.

The love for Sanders runs deep, the poll shows.

Selzer noted that 39% of likely caucusgoers say their feelings about Sanders are very favorable, with another 34% saying mostly favorable. Only 8% have a negative view of Sanders.

Contrast that with Clinton: Fewer feel very favorable about her (27%), and twice as many view her negatively (19%).

Still, she’s doing better than in fall 2007, when she was viewed negatively by 30% of likely Democratic caucusgoers.

Poll respondents say they’re wild about Sanders because of his authenticity, refusal to run a negative campaign and his big ideas, which include government-paid college tuition and health care for all.

“He doesn’t sugarcoat anything, and he has answers to actual questions. He doesn’t just use talking points,” said Deb Bolfik, a 41-year-old grocery store worker from Des Moines who intends to support Sanders in the caucuses.

Contributing: Jason Noble of The Register