Marist Poll contains some cautionary signs for Bernie
As has been talked about ad nauseum, Bernie is going to be very reliant on voters who are not, well, reliable. Namely the youth and voters who have never bothered to caucus before. The Marist poll that just came out shows the race is essentially unchanged from their last poll also showed Clinton at +3.
However, there are two numbers buried in the demographics that show how Iowa could possibly end poorly for Sanders:
First, is how voters describe themselves as "strongly supporting" a candidate. You wouldn't think it, but Clinton holds the edge here at 51% strong support to 46% for Bernie. That might not seem like a big difference, but it does indicate that turnout of uncommon voters may not be as robust as needed. Even just a few percentage points in shift of voters showing up could be enough to move the needle.
In conjunction with that, is the following breakdown, which has been very similar across all pollsters:
Among past caucus goers, Clinton leads 52% - 40%
Among never caucused, Sanders leads 56% - 41%
Between the strong support gap and the huge disparity in voting likelihood between reliable and unreliable voters, Bernie is highly, highly dependent on turnout from groups that don't historically, well, turnout.
And before anyone questions the strong support numbers, keep in mind Clinton supporters have now had three weeks of being told there is a real fight on our hands. Nothing galvanizes support like being put at risk. Polls should be showing Clinton supporters are digging in and are ready to go.
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