THE STATES
Nothing yet today. I’ve been waiting on the CNN/WMUR New Hampshire poll (they released the Republican numbers yesterday) but I’ve got to publish this at some point. If it comes out tonight, it will be included tomorrow.
IT CAME, IT CAME! (see update below, will still include tomorrow)
NATIONAL
Morning Consult (Unrated by Fivethirtyeight)
Clinton 52
Sanders 23
O’Malley 2
While the margin remains almost the same from their mid-November poll (Clinton led then by 31, now by 29) the support for both candidates has dropped somewhat. Clinton is down six points and Sanders is down 4. While Clinton’s 52% is in line with some recent polling (though much of it shows her quite a bit higher) Sanders’s 23% here is the lowest support level he’s registered in ANY national poll since October. As a new pollster, and an internet pollster, we cannot know how many grains of salt we need to take these results with, but they are another data point for the pile.
Either way, nothing seems to have happened in the past few weeks that would drag down both candidates while undecideds rise, particularly since O’Malley didn’t move at all. 23% of voters are not supporting a candidate here, while just 15% were in that position six weeks ago.
St. Leo University (Unrated by Fivethirtyeight)
Clinton 59
Sanders 24
O’Malley 8
This poll shows a very poor result for Sanders relative to other polling lately (besides, of course, the poll just above) but it is actually a strong improvement for him. Their last poll, at the beginning of October, had him behind 55-12 (with Biden in second place at 16). That is pretty different from other polling available at the time- some showed Biden close to Sanders, but he was almost never ahead.
Clinton’s support is at the high end of what we’ve seen lately, but not out of a reasonable range. On the other hand, her 35 point lead is a fair amount higher than what we’ve seen elsewhere.
All that said, RCP does not include this poll in their averages, nor does Pollster with their more lax standards for inclusion. Pollster DID include their results for general election stuff, so I don’t know if they are going to start including this poll going forward, but thus far they have not included previous polls in the average. We can take this poll with a whole shaker of salt, and it may not even get thrown on the pile.
THE AVERAGES
All counts are Clinton-Sanders-O’Malley
National
RCP: 56-31-2 (RCP does not include internet polls, so this is unchanged from yesterday)
Pollster: 55-31-3 (Pollster’s average only includes Morning Consult, not St. Leo)
THE HISTORY
Nothing new to update today, Clinton remains with a slightly stronger margin and a significantly stronger share of the vote than in the 2008 race.
UPDATE:
User MBishop1 pointed out another national poll released today.
YouGov/Economist (Fivethirtyeight rating C+)
Clinton 56
Sanders 35
O’Malley 2
Not a huge difference from their poll two weeks ago, which had the race at 54-34-4. What we’ve been seeing pretty consistently across polls is a fairly steady race, with Clinton in the mid to high 50s and Sanders in the low to mid 30s.
This poll won’t be included in the RCP averages (another internet poll) and has not yet been added to Pollster, so I will add it to tomorrow’s diary assuming Pollster has picked it up by then.
UPDATE 2:
New Hampshire
Clinton 40
Sanders 50
O’Malley 1
Sanders’s 10 point advantage here is stronger than what we’ve seen in most recent polling, but it also represents an improvement for Clinton over their last poll, where Sanders led by 16 (and Biden was included at 14%). Since then, Clinton has gained 10 points, Sanders has gained 4, and O’Malley has dropped 1.
This poll was slightly better for Sanders than other polling back in September, when they last released, as well. Overall, Biden’s exit from the race appears to have helped Clinton, but Sanders maintains a lead. Added to the pile, we will take a look at how it affects the averages tomorrow.