With three weeks left before the New Hampshire primary, Bernie Sanders leads Hillary Clinton in the state among likely voters by nine percentage points, the latest poll says.
Considered a hometown favorite because of the closeness of Vermont and New Hampshire, Sanders now leads Clinton 50-41, according to a new Suffolk University poll. Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley earned 2 percent, while 6 percent said they were undecided.
In the counties bordering his home state of Vermont, Sanders, a self-described socialist, has opened a bigger lead over Clinton, 58-32 percent. In the three remaining regions, the combined results showed a much tighter race.
However, Sanders isn’t a shoe-in for New Hampshire. Though he enjoyed 80-12 percent favorability-unfavorability rating to Clinton’s 71-23, likely Democratic voters are more inclined to believe Clinton has the best chance in the general election.
Those polled are more aligned with Clinton over Sanders on gun control, 44-30 percent, and also believe she has a better chance than Sanders at defeating the Republican nominee come November, 60-27 percent.
“Familiarity and favorability are winning the day for Bernie Sanders,” David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center in Boston, said in a statement accompanying the poll. “But given voters’ thoughts about the gun control issue and who is more likely to win in November, the Clinton campaign might gain by pointing out Sanders’ vulnerabilities in these areas.”
Sanders did better when it comes to the issue of trust. Those polled chose Sanders by a 15-point margin when asked which of the three major Democratic candidates is most trustworthy, 51 percent to Clinton’s 36 percent.
A small number of New Hampshire Democratic primary voters said they could be motivated to switch to the GOP ballot.
Roughly 7 percent said Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s candidacy could persuade them to vote in the Republican primary, while 6 percent and 3 percent said the same of Donald Trump and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, respectively.
The telephone poll of 500 likely New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary voters was conducted Jan. 19-21 and carries a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.
