Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who drew nearly 10,000 supporters to a campaign rally in the Midwest in early July, is now within 7 points of Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton in Iowa, according to a Des Moines Register poll released Saturday.
Since May, Clinton has dropped from being the first choice candidate of roughly 60 percent of left-leaning voters in Iowa to just 37 percent, according to the latest poll. Meanwhile, the fiery socialist senator from Vermont has rapidly gained support in the early primary state and is now the preferred Democratic candidate among 30 percent of voters.
The report notes that this is the first time Clinton has dropped below 50 percent support in Iowa in the four polls that the Register and Bloomberg Politics have so far conducted during the current election cycle.
“This feels like 2008 all over again,” J. Ann Selzer, president of the Iowa-based public research firm responsible for commissioning the poll, told the Register.
Clinton, who lost the Democratic nomination to then-Sen. Barack Obama in 2008 has been the Party’s presumed nominee this cycle. But her unforthcoming posture with the press and worsening email scandal is leading voters straight into the warm embrace of Sanders and potentially, Vice President Joe Biden.
According to the poll, Sanders has a double-digit lead over Clinton among more first-time caucus-goers in the Hawkeye state. He also leads Clinton by 23 percentage points among voters age 45 and under and by 21 percentage points among independent voters.
However, should the former secretary of state maintain her slight lead over Sanders and secure the nomination, 66 percent of respondents indicated they were “mostly confident” she could beat whoever the GOP nominee is in a general election matchup. Twenty-four percent were “mostly nervous” and less than 10 percent were unsure.
The poll of 404 likely Democratic primary voters was conducted between Aug. 23-26 and has a 4.9 percent margin of error.
