By Patrick O' Connor
Hillary Clinton has widened her lead to 25 percentage points in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds.
The former secretary of state leads Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders 59% to 34%, a slightly larger margin than the 19-point gap in December.
The new national poll comes as surveys in Iowa and New Hampshire show the race tightening in the states that play host to the first two nominating contests. While losses there would be a setback for Mrs. Clinton, the new Journal/NBC News survey suggests that she would retain strong advantages in the later primaries. Mrs. Clinton owes her durable lead nationally to her strength with key subgroups in the Democratic primary electorate, including nonwhite, older and moderate-to-conservative primary voters.
The race looks much different in Iowa and New Hampshire. Aggregates of recent polls show the contests to be close in both states, with Mrs. Clinton edging Mr. Sanders in Iowa and the Vermont senator claiming a lead in neighboring New Hampshire.
Nationally, the race has changed little since October, Journal/NBC News polling finds. Support levels haven’t budged much for either of the two leading Democrats since Mrs. Clinton bounced back from a late-summer swoon, which had been driven by questions about her family’s charitable foundation and a federal probe into her use of a private email server as secretary of state.
Four in five Democratic primary voters in the new survey said they could see themselves voting for Mrs. Clinton, relatively unchanged since last March. By comparison, two-thirds said they would consider voting for Mr. Sanders, fewer than those who said so of Mrs. Clinton but up from just 21% in March.
Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley remains an afterthought; some 22% said they were open to supporting him, and only 2% named him as their first choice.
All three Democratic presidential candidates will square off Sunday night in North Charleston, S.C., in a debate hosted by NBC.
“I like her policies, I like her spunk, I like the way she’s willing to jump right into the fray,” said Sandra Rowe, 69 years old, a part-time middle-school teacher from Tequesta, Fla., who supports Mrs. Clinton. “She’s not afraid.”
Gloria Ruiz, 71, a retiree from Millbury, Ohio, said, “I’ve been for Hillary Clinton since she ran the last time, in 2008....She’s a strong person. She seems to have more knowledge than anyone else.”
Democratic primary voters age 50 and older favor Mrs. Clinton over Mr. Sanders, 71% to 22%. Moderate and conservative primary voters also prefer the former first lady, 64% to 24%. And she leads by a margin of 69% to 27% among nonwhite primary voters, who have little presence in Iowa and New Hampshire but account for large shares of the electorate in states that vote just afterward, including Nevada and South Carolina.
Mrs. Clinton also outpaces Mr. Sanders among self-described liberals, albeit by a narrower, 11-point margin.
The Vermont senator has waged a closer-than-expected race against Mrs. Clinton in Iowa and New Hampshire, thanks in part to his appeal among younger voters and independents who plan to vote in the Democratic primary. He posts single-digit leads over Mrs. Clinton among both slices of the Democrats’ primary electorate.
Mr. Sanders also is strong among voters who say they want a candidate who will change current policies rather than one with more experience who may bring less change.
“He just seems real, like he can’t be bought,” said Carmela Cancino, 33, an account manager from Richwood, Texas, who learned about the Vermont senator from her friends’ Facebook posts. “He seems to stand for the things I stand for—reducing income inequality, making college more affordable... And he seems so genuine.”
Laura Overton, 47, an interior decorator from Atlanta, said: “I just appreciate that he cares about people, all of the people.”
The Journal/NBC News poll surveyed 400 voters who said they would cast ballots in a Democratic primary. It was conducted Jan. 9-13 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.
The two Democratic candidates are running neck-and-neck in Iowa, which kicks off the nominating process on Feb. 1. Mr. Sanders leads most polls of New Hampshire primary voters, who will vote on Feb. 9. In contrast to the national electorate, voters in both states have been influenced by millions of dollars in advertising and by the vast turnout operations the two candidates have built.
“In Iowa, those people are watching a radically different campaign,” said Republican pollster Bill McInturff, who conducts the Journal/NBC News poll with Democrat Fred Yang.
Iowa and New Hampshire are less racially diverse than the country as a whole; white voters accounted for 93% of the participants in Iowa’s 2008 Democratic caucuses. Mrs. Clinton’s lead among white voters is 15 percentage points, 10 points closer than her lead among Democratic primary voters overall.
As voting nears, both Democrats have made the case to voters that they are the most electable in November. In the new Journal/NBC News poll, both perform similarly in a hypothetical head-to-head match-up with Republican front-runner Donald Trump. Mrs. Clinton beats the celebrity businessman 51% to 41%, while Mr. Sanders notches a slightly larger 54%-to-39% margin.
Republicans and Democrats are looking for fundamentally different things in their next presidential nominee, the new survey shows. Some 80% of Republicans want a candidate who represents change, compared with the 18% who favor experience. That is a reversal from the 2008 race, when Republicans controlled the White House—and when 80% of GOP primary voters wanted an experienced candidate rather than one who would bring change.
The shift in sentiment helps explain why Republicans continue to rate Mr. Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz much higher than candidates with more experience.
Democrats, meanwhile, are more likely to be shopping for experience. Some 53% of Democratic primary voters said they favored a more seasoned and tested candidate for the nomination. Some 77% of those voters prefer Mrs. Clinton, while just 19% prefer Mr. Sanders.
The Vermont senator leads among the 42% of Democratic primary voters who are looking for change, but only by 13 percentage points.
“She’s the most qualified,” said Charles Jose Simeon, 64, a retired U.S. Army veteran from Miami Lakes, Fla., who favors Mrs. Clinton in the primary. “Bernie Sanders is qualified, but I don’t think he’s as qualified as Hillary Clinton.”
http://www.wsj.com/articles/clintons-lead-over-sanders-widens-1453039203
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