Voters in Iowa are standing behind Hillary Clinton far more than Bernie Sanders in a just-released poll.
Democrats in Iowa who support Hillary Clinton are more “locked-in” that those who support Bernie Sanders, and that’s translating into a huge spread for the Democratic frontrunner.
Clinton now has 65 percent of the Democratic vote in the Hawkeye State, against Bernie Sanders’ 24 percent, a 41-point lead, the Monmouth University Poll finds.
This is the first Iowa poll taken after Clinton’s dramatic testimony before the House Congressional Benghazi Committee, and after the news that Vice President Joe Biden will not enter the race.
Former governor Martin O’Malley takes 5 percent, and Lawrence Lessig, less than 1 percent.
“Clinton enjoys a large lead over Sanders among both male (55% to 33%) and female (73% to 16%) voters. She also has an edge across the ideological spectrum, leading among voters who are very liberal (57% to 34%), somewhat liberal (68% to 22%), and moderate (69% to 19%),” the Monmouth University Poll reports. “Clinton’s support appears to be more solid than the Sanders vote.”
The poll also shows that 79 percent of Democrats say their party is “doing a good job representing the concerns of voters like you.”
“Both candidates have strong favorability ratings,” The Hill adds, “with Clinton coming in at 88 percent positive and 8 percent negative, and 77 percent saying they view Sanders positively, against 11 percent who view him negatively.”
UPDATE: 2:25 PM EDT –
Our friends at AmericaBlog took a look at the poll’s methodology, and call it “a pretty strict likely voter screen — one that isn’t likely to represent the eventual Iowa electorate.” Editor Jon Green says Monmouth “could very easily have undercounted Sanders’s supporters.”
Green writes, “it would be a monumental stretch to say that Bernie Sanders is still leading in Iowa; Clinton’s almost certainly ahead. But to to say that she’s ahead by 41 points, nearly tripling Sanders’s level of support, amounts to a stretch of equal proportions.”
Â
Image by Phil Roeder via Flickr and a CC license