With polls showing a tightening race, an aggressive Hillary Clinton punched back Monday night against criticism that she’s been late to the game on economic inequality and is failing to engage younger voters – like her chief rival, Bernie Sanders. In the most recent CNN Poll of Polls, Sanders edges Clinton 46% to 44% in Iowa, with O’Malley at 4%. But if it were to happen it would be far more likely on the GOP side where there are more candidates to split the registered Republican vote.
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Over the weekend, Clinton landed important endorsements from The Des Moines Register (Iowa) and The Concord Monitor (New Hampshire) as well as from The Boston Globe. Bernie Sanders reacted to Obama’s comments in the interview that the president does not have the “luxury” to focus on one thing.
The candidates are set to appear individually Monday night on CNN’s presidential town hall, the final event with all three candidates before caucus night. Fox showed Sanders leading Clinton 56% to 34%, up from 50% to 37% earlier this month, while a Franklin Pierce University/Boston Herald poll showed Sanders nabbing 55% to Clinton’s 39%.
The national survey shows a Democratic electorate sharply splintered along demographic lines.
“We are touching a nerve with the American people who understand that establishment politics just aren’t bold enough”, Sanders said.
The two-hour event, in which former Secretary of State Clinton, Vermont Sen. Party leaders worry that having such a provocative candidate will alienate voters the GOP needs to win in November, potentially risking both the White House and down-ballot races. Half (51 percent) of Clinton supporters and 39 percent of Sanders voters would be satisfied with the vice president as the Democratic nominee. While the questions she faced where less specific on policy, she emphasized that the tough challenges a president faces – an implicit suggestion that Sanders is proposing unrealistic ideas.
With most of the Republicans circling each other in Iowa, Chris Christie and John Kasich were searching for votes in New Hampshire, where the GOP base is friendlier to more mainstream, socially moderate candidates.
Still, Clinton maintains a sense of inevitability.
Sanders has energized young voters in particular with his call for a “political revolution”.
“I don’t believe that her [Clinton’s] plan is very serious”, O’Malley said in an interview with ClimateWire.
“I don’t think that’s true”, Obama said when asked whether Sanders is playing a similar role this year. Six-in-10 Clinton backers would be satisfied or enthusiastic if Sanders won, and 54% of Sanders backers would be satisfied or enthusiastic if Clinton won.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said the partnership between the United States and Israel must strengthen amid a surge in global extremist terrorism.
O’Malley also vowed to reintroduce more affordable wages for workers, saying “our economy is not money, it’s people”. Results for the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
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Clinton, the 68-year-old former secretary of state, and Sanders, a 74-year-old senator from Vermont, are running neck-and-neck in some opinion polls, though Clinton enjoys a wide advantage on a nationwide basis.
