Clinton's lead over Sanders shrinks as her edge over GOP vanishes

[Attorney in Texas]

Source: CNN

Washington (CNN)Hillary Clinton's lead in the race for the Democratic nomination has fallen to just 10 points, and at the same time, her advantage in hypothetical general election matchups against the top Republican contenders has vanished, a new CNN/ORC poll has found.

The new poll finds Clinton with 37% support among Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters, down 10 points since August, followed by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders at 27% and Vice President Joe Biden at 20%. Sanders' support is about the same as it was in August, making Biden the only candidate to post significant gains in the last month. His support is up 6 points in the last month as he weighs making a run for the presidency.
...
The shift away from the former secretary of state stems from shrinking support among women. Clinton's advantage among women has disappeared in matchups against Bush and Carson. Facing Trump, Clinton still carries women by a large, though tighter, margin. In August, 60% of women favored Clinton to 37% for Trump, but that's narrowed slightly to 55% Clinton, 41% Trump now. Clinton's advantage among women against Trump is fueled by independent women, despite that group shifting away from Clinton in the head-to-head against Bush.

The poll suggests Republican women have consolidated their support around their party's front-runners in the last month, and are now more apt to back both Bush and Trump than they were a month ago. At the same time, the near-universal support for Clinton among Democratic women has softened slightly, bringing it more in-line with her support among Democratic men.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/10/politics/hillary-clinton-poll-women/

[TDale313]

1. Not a Hillary supporter, but...

Wonder how that changes without Biden in the poll. Does that 20% go to more to Hillary, Bernie, or split evenly? I would guess it would mostly go towards Hillary. Still, shows a lot of Democrats looking for another option.

[Attorney in Texas]

2. I think Biden takes more votes numerically from Clinton but has a greater impact on Sanders.

Sanders pathway to the nomination is narrow and everything has to fall in place whereas Clinton's path to the nomination has lots of room for adjustment built in and plenty of margin for error.

I don't see Biden jumping in unless the Clinton campaign collapses, and this email nonissue and the downturn in the polls is not a collapse. A collapse is what you see in the Bush, Walker and Rubio campaigns -- well funded campaigns with lots of establishment support and yet no love whatsoever from the voters. If that happens to the Clinton campaign, I think Biden jumps in (probably after the New Hampshire primary), but otherwise Biden's only role would be as a spoiler.

I think the Big test for Sanders (a test I think he is up for) is expanding his support beyond Iowa and New Hampshire.

[Pauldg47]

17. Biden is already getting most attention now, but as we go along here...

....Bernie will start taking it back..... Remember Biden is the "establishment". He may have Bo (his son) on thoughts, to win on his behalf, but that will be forgotten by voters as we go along... my opinion.

[Attorney in Texas]

21. If Biden runs, he and Sanders split the support of those voters who are uncomfortable with Clinton.

Because the progressive wing of the party is not big enough by itself to nominate Sanders without additional support from other voting blocks within the Democratic party, Sanders needs the united support from the progressive wing of the party (and he's got it) PLUS the united support of the not-Clinton segments of the party (this is where his campaign needs to grow).

Clinton is very popular among Democrats (for example, I'm a Sanders supporter and I like Clinton). After months of non-stop attacks from the 17 Republicans, from the NYT, from the WSJ, from FauxNews, from Mourning Joe on M$NBC, Clinton still has about a 75% approval rating and a 15% disapproval rating among Democrats so the not-Clinton segment of the party is not all that big. Still, if you add the not-Clinton segment of the party to the progressive wing of the party, you are approaching a consensus. Sanders is making good and steady progress toward building that consensus (and he's doing it the right way -- emphasizing policy differences and not attacking Clinton personally or with manufactured right-wing talking points).

If Biden enters the race, he splits the not-Clinton vote with Sanders so the math is not there for Sanders to enter the convention with 51% of the delegates. If you think Sanders enters finishes a three way race with Biden and Clinton were Sanders has 51% of the delegates and Clinton and Biden average about 25% of the delegates each, you are dreaming. With Clinton's campaign infrastructure and bank of endorsements and campaign funds and with Biden's status as the sitting VP, the centrist-establishment parts of the party will assure that the combined delegate total for Clinton plus Biden is more than 51% (regardless of whether Biden jumps in or not, Clinton's head start with party's centrists-establishment is so substantial that Biden probably cannot overtake Clinton among them so Biden is probably in a race with Sanders for second place and Biden's path to victory must involve either a brokered convention or taking the progressive support from Sanders, which I don't see happening). In a 3-way race, it is exceedingly unlikely that Sanders gets 51% of the delegates against Clinton and Biden.

You may ask what if Sanders gets 35% of the delegates and enters the convention with the highest delegate total because Clinton and Biden split the centrist-establishment delegates so evenly that Sanders squeaks out a slight plurality of delegates. Then we'd have a brokered convention. If you think for one moment that Sanders enters a brokered convention with Biden and Clinton, and Sanders comes out the winner, than you do not understand how brokered conventions work.

To get the nomination, Sanders needs to win 51% of the delegates. He can do it -- in fact he is on the exact path he would have to travel to accomplish this upset win over Clinton -- but he probably can't do it if Biden takes half of the not-Clinton vote.

[Ford_Prefect]

3. Its an interesting poll but rather small numbers making up the respondants.

I get very uncomfortable when less than 600 people are said to represent the whole county. Regardless of the quality of the questions that is a very small polling group to represent roughly 145 million registered voters (us census bureau).

[onehandle]

6. CNN's polling methodology is crap.

And I'm not saying this because it's 'bad news for Hillary,' but they put pennies on the dollar in their polling compared to true polling organizations.

[Ford_Prefect]

7. I once worked for Harris Polls and have seen the differences. CNN cannot be taken seriously.

Its too easy to call them FOX-lite though they often echo the same POV without the hysteria. The news on all MSM channels sucks when it come to this kind of polling.

I have seen what passes for contemporary journalism students and it's as appalling as what we see on screen. Which is not to mention the MSM ownership or management (that kind of commentary would get me banned for extremely offensive language).

[former9thward]

12. The sample size was 1012 people.

That is the standard size for national polling.

[Ford_Prefect]

13. If you read each question and the listed respondents for each the numbers get much smaller.

1012 did not respond to all of the questions or even to the majority of questions.
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2015/images/09/10/demsclinton.pdf

for example:

BASED ON 259 REGISTERED VOTERS WHO DESCRIBE THEMSELVES AS DEMOCRATS AND 136 REGISTERED VOTERS WHO DESCRIBED THEMSELVES AS INDEPENDENTS WHO LEAN DEMOCRATIC, FOR A TOTAL OF 395 REGISTERED DEMOCRATS-- (SAMPLING ERROR: +/- 5% PTS.)

4. How enthusiastic would you say you are about voting for president in next year’s election--
extremely enthusiastic, very enthusiastic, somewhat enthusiastic, not too enthusiastic, or not at all enthusiastic?

Please note that I do not dispute the results of the poll. I question whether so small a selection is actually representative, and yes I have taken statistics and have done polling. I think CNN is frequently a bit remiss in these matters and often shows a particular preference for their version of status quo and pop culture myths. They rarely ask the truly hard questions and often seem to go out of their way to uphold a variety of cultural stereotypes.

[former9thward]

15. Yeah, I agree.

But I am not paying too much attention to any polls of Democrats which include Biden. If he runs include him. Until he does stop polling his name. Who knows where those votes are going to go.

[Laser102]

4. Not buying it. What a crock. I can't imagine any thinking woman voting for Trump.

MSM is determined to control this election with their lies and manipulations. They should be put on ignore.

[Elmer S. E. Dump]

8. You aren't including the non-thinking women. They are usually married to non-thinking men.

[bklyncowgirl]

5. Hillary is losing women to Ben Carson? Sorry, I don't get that at all.

I imagine that aside from the fundamentalists who love him, most people don't know what Carson stands for at all. This is frankly scary.

[Elmer S. E. Dump]

9. You know what they say about going black, right?

We may have lost them permanently.

[BigDemVoter]

19. And I completely don't believe it.

African American women have NOTHING to gain from voting for Carson, and they are NOT stupid.

[landolfi]

10. Please...

This reminds me of the Christmas decorations in Walgreens going up the day after Halloween, or the TV Superbowl coverage starting Saturday afternoon. Do we really have to be subjected to this horse race BS with the election over a year out? Surely Fox News has some personalities who could take a geography quiz on-air for our amusement. Or maybe CNN could wheel out some curmudgeonly old general to tell us why we lost in Vietnam, that's a rich and largely unmined topic. Trump is getting headlines now for being an arrogant prick full of opinions but disdainful of fact, Ben Carson for being apparently highly educated but astonishingly ignorant.

Did I mention that the election is over a year off?

There are so many people in the GOP clown car that they get all the news coverage and the focus is on them. For now, as each day brings multiple stunningly narrowminded pronouncements of long-disproved half-truths and outright lies, with more than 10 defective but familiar candidates the stream of insanity is so steady that if folks hear it often enough on the news, it starts to sound like fact. But these results will mean nothing when the majority of Americans, many of whom aren't even paying attention now, realize they aren't electing the f-ing king of the prom.

[jeff47]

11. Well, a large percentage of Clinton supporters here claim their support

is based on her doing the best against the Republicans in the general election.

So yes, people are already using the "horserace" to decide who they support.

[fbc]

14. Elections are a year away?

Primaries start in less than five months.

These things tend to creep up on ya

[Attorney in Texas]

23. The horse race polling now tells us little about who will win the nomination but it tells us much

about who won't win and how the winner will shape his or her message.

Will Chafee's social security proposals be a big part of the debate in March? Horse race polling now is some evidence that it will not be.

Will Webb's campaign as a conservative Democrat catch fire? Horse race polling now is some evidence that it will not.

Will Chafee and Webb be able to raise the funds necessary to contest the Super Tuesday primaries? Some of the people with check books who could answer those questions are watching horse race polling now and making decisions with repercussions about who will still be in the race on Super Tuesday. If someone likes Sanders and also likes Chafee and is thinking about making a contribution, he or she might be deciding right now to choose Sanders based on the horse race polling.

Will Sanders tweak his message and his campaign schedule because certain demographics or regions are not hearing his message as clearly as he would like for them to hear it? The horse race polling right now is effecting those key decisions.

Will Biden jump in the race? It's a safe bet that he's carefully watching the horse race polling now and his conclusions from that data will influence his decision.

I agree that the horse race polling now tells us little about who will win the nomination, but that is not the only purpose (or even the main purpose) the early data is used to for.

[lark]

16. Media's been slamming her 24/7, so no wonder.

If they gave any of the Repugs the same treatment, they'd be totally out of there. I'm really getting sick of the NYT vendetta against the Clintons.

Of course when Cheney and Bush were found to have done lots worse, had all their private PC's destroyed before any evidence could be recovered and they used these same private machines to communicate with the CIA, and nothing gets done, it's totally ignored.

I really hate this fucking double std.

[BigDemVoter]

18. I totally believe Sanders has overtaken Clinton.

But I don't buy the business about the GOP catching up. They (the press) did this in 2012 with Obama and didn't take into consideration that Obama would win sufficient electoral votes. Who cares if the GOP candidate can win states like Wyoming?

[closeupready]

20. Quick, DWS! Eliminate the debates ENTIRELY! That ought to ensure

Hills' coronation by keeping people in the dark.

[qstick]

22. Got that right.

Like mushrooms--kept in the dark and fed shit all day.