For the first time, Bernie Sanders is within single digits of his Democratic presidential opponent Hillary Clinton in a poll released Friday.
Clinton now leads Sanders by 8 points nationally, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found. That’s the former secretary of state’s smallest lead ever over the Vermont senator. Clinton’s support was at 45 percent one week ago but has since dropped to 39 percent, over Sanders’ 31 percent.
The controversy over Clinton’s use of a private email address while leading the State Department is largely credited with her erosion of popularity. Earlier this week, she apologized for the practice but her campaign still insists she did nothing wrong.
Independent reviews have found some of the emails Clinton sent from her personal address contained classified information, but Clinton has said she never sent information that was classified at the time.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll surveyed 668 Democrats from Sept. 7 to 11 and had a credibility interval of 4.4 percentage points.
