Discussion for article #241912
Hey, there’s Biden again! Can’t get enough polling for the guy not in the race! I’m glad that our pollsters are busy coming up with people who aren’t running to poll on.
2 Likes
At this point, there is only one person who could ever stop Hillary Clinton from becoming President: Hillary Clinton. As long as she doesn’t blow it she’s got no real opposition from either party. In short, it’s hers to lose.
2 Likes
The poll does show Hillary maintaining a strong lead in this CNN/ORC poll, but what TPM’s article doesn’t mention is that it also shows Bernie gained 5 points since the last CNN/ORC poll. Hillary has stayed about the same, it looks like Bernie’s increase comes from folks who previously said they were undecided or for Biden.
Anyway, a 16 point lead (45-29) is still a very strong lead, and without Biden she’d probably have more like 55%, so that’s obviously a pretty good place to be.
Meanwhile the Monmouth poll that also came out today shows Hillary with an even bigger lead over Bernie, by 27 points (48 Hillary, 21 Bernie, 17 Biden. That’s compared to the previous Monmouth poll in early September, which showed Hillary with 42, Bernie with 20, and Biden with 22.
1 Like
Why do people even bother with these polls? Two hours ago, this same site posted a report that Sanders was leading in the polls … now it’s HIllary. What happened during those two plus hours? Obviously polls can be manipulated, and this is a prime example.
Not sure what you’re talking about - I haven’t seen any articles anywhere that say Sanders was leading in the polls, except in New Hampshire (and briefly, a while back, in Iowa).
Hillary’s lead in the Monmouth poll is 33% without Biden in the race, 57% to 24%. Bernie will be close to being toast if/when/in the aftermath of Biden announcing that he’s not announcing.
Super Tuesday will be make or break for Bernie. If he wins New Hampshire and Iowa, and comes close enough (how close is close enough…who knows) in South Carolina, he looks like a real contender going into Super Tuesday. But if he gets trounced on Super Tuesday, as well as in South Carolina, then I’d say he’s probably toast. His path to the nomination is a steep and narrow one, and would probably require some unexpected twists and turns for him to come out on top. Not at all impossible, but certainly quite improbable.
Meanwhile though, he’s playing a very constructive role in Democratic politics, and in the political culture of our country in general. He’s pushing the bounds of what is considered possible, both in terms of bold policy proposals and in his wildly successful underdog / small donor / non-super PAC / no-negative-ads campaign. As some writer (I forget who) put it, Hillary may have “won” the debate, but it’s Bernie who has been setting the agenda.
He is losing in Iowa. And getting creamed in SC and FL. There isn’t that much polling being posted for NV, but what I have seen has him down there by a large margin also.
And that’s pretty much been the same story for several months now. So the more likely scenario right now is Hillary wins Iowa, Sanders wins NH, Hillary trounces Sanders in SC and NV and then pounds him really bad on Super Tuesday. Sanders closes his campaign soon after that when it becomes clear he has no path to get the necessary delegates. Everyone focuses the last spring/early summer on rallying around Hillary, as we watch in both horror/glee at the disaster forming on in the GOP nomination race.
Yeah, but that’s a national poll, with a pretty small sample size. National polls are meaningless to us, since we aren’t determining who gets on our stage with them.
Hillary was up in the first NH poll after the debates, but I see Sanders is up now in another. My guess is he probably still has the lead there.
The polling out of Iowa has been almost non-existent for this month, which I find quite surprising, right after the first debate. Nevada has been lightly polled this entire cycle, SC only slightly better. But Hillary is showing big margins in both states.
SC is actually the more interesting of the 4 early states to me. Because it is more reflective of what Super Tuesday brings, being a southern state. So far, Sanders has been doing horribly with Black voters, which, if that holds, will absolutely kill him on Super Tuesday.
All very plausible, though I could see Bernie staying in the race well beyond the point where he has a meaningful shot – just to keep building his movement and focusing attention on his main issues. What we can be pretty sure he won’t do when he sees that he no longer has a chance to win, is to have a meltdown, and launch a bunch of scorched-ground attacks against his rival for the nomination, and go independent/third-party. With Trump, on the other hand…I think the chances of a spectacular meltdown are exceedingly high, and pledge or no pledge, I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if he tried to run as an independent / third party candidate. Both Bernie and Trump have given their word on this – the difference is that Bernie’s word means something, Trump’s word is only good until he decides it’s not.
By the way, I share your surprise at the lack of recent polling from Iowa and South Carolina. My guess is that when those next polls do finally come out we’ll see a pretty close race in Iowa, with Hillary probably still holding a single-digit lead, but Bernie “within striking distance.” And a much less close race in S.Carolina, with Bernie perhaps gaining some ground, but probably not nearly enough, and not nearly fast enough. If, on the other hand, Bernie surprises us and polls start to show that he’s making serious progress in South Carolina, then watch out…it could be a bumpy ride.