Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, left, at the at the Holiday Inn on Feb. 1, 2016 in Des Moines, Iowa, while Hillary Clinton, right, speaks on the evening of the Iowa Democratic caucus, Feb. 1, 2016. (Photo: Joshua Lott/Getty Images/AP)
The presumed Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton now trails Vermont socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders nationally for the first time, according to a new FOX Poll. Mrs. Clinton, the former secretary of state and first lady, fell behind Sanders by three points, 47% to 44%.
The small lead Sanders holds over Clinton is within the poll’s 4.5% margin of error.
“One thing that is clear from our poll — and others — is that Clinton has been losing support and Sanders has been gaining,” says Democratic pollster Chris Anderson. “And this process appears to have accelerated since the contests in Iowa and New Hampshire.”
However, according to PPD’s senior political analyst, there are some questionable findings in the poll.
“For starters, the polls says voters by a 54% to 39% margin say they prefer the next president ‘to have experience in politics’ rather than ‘be from outside the political establishment’,” Baris said. “Polls are certainly helpful. But the real poll that matters is on election day, which doesn’t suggest this sample is very representative of voters going to the polls this year.”
Sanders also trounces the potential GOP nominees, including the frontrunner Donald Trump by 53% to 38%. Clinton holds a smaller five-point lead over Trump, 47% to 42%. Republican pollster Daron Shaw, who conducts the FOX Poll jointly with Mr. Anderson, suggested blue-collar Democrats “have been a major source of Clinton’s defection” in the wake of a near-loss in Iowa and pummeling in New Hampshire.
“Historically, lesser-known candidates beating establishment candidates in early contests have seen the biggest boost in their national support,” Shaw said.
But that finding is problematic and simply doesn’t match the voting results and exit polls from the early states, according to Baris. It’s not just demographics, but discrepancies in the raw vote and turnout.
“Clinton’s remaining strength among whites is almost solely with working-class, blue-collar whites,” Baris says. “The remaining whites are voting for Donald Trump, as was the case in both Iowa and New Hampshire. Where do they think all these new, record-breaking numbers for the GOP are coming from?”
According to recent aggregated and published data from People’s Pundit Daily, which took party affiliation and ideology data from the latter half of 2015 to 2016, the Republican Party has a distinct edge in the battleground states, including a nearly 9-point lead in the Granite State and 3.3 in the Hawkeye State. While national numbers skew the Democratic advantage due to the high number of voters in large population centers and states, we still wouldn’t expect such a large margin for Sanders.
“Bernie Sanders has shown he is no Barack Obama at the polls,” Baris says. “He is driving turnout among younger voters, but not at the levels seen in 2008 or 2012. That’s simply a reality, not a hypothetical in a survey.”
A recent Quinnipiac University Poll shows a tight race with Clinton still leading by 2%, 44% to 42%, with all the potential GOP candidates in a statistical dead heat with both Clinton and Sanders. A Suffolk University USAToday Poll found Trump leading both Democratic contenders, with most of the GOP candidates competitive or leading.
Clinton still leads Sanders on the PPD aggregate average of national Democratic nomination polls by 8 points.
Meanwhile, if Clinton isn’t indictment for mishandling classified information while serving as secretary of state–which 60% say put the national security of the U.S. at risk– half of voters, 50%, believe it will be because President Obama is protecting her. Forty-one percent (41%) say it will be because there isn’t proof she committed a crime.
