On the heels of drawing a record crowd to a Wisconsin campaign rally and a New Hampshire poll showing Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders catching up to Hillary Clinton in the Granite State, a new poll shows Sanders has more than doubled his support among likely Democratic caucus voters in Iowa.
According to the independent
Quinnipiac University survey, Sanders trails Clinton by 52-33 percent margin in the Hawkeye State. But the numbers show a meteoric rise for Sanders, who in May received just 15 percent support of likely Iowa Democratic caucus-goers to the former secretary of state’s 60 percent.
"Secretary Hillary Clinton should not be biting her fingernails over her situation in the Iowa caucus, but her lead is slipping and Sen. Bernie Sanders is making progress against her," according to Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll.
"Her 52 percent score among likely caucus-goers is still OK, but this is the first time she has been below 60 percent in Quinnipiac University's Iowa survey."
Sanders has "more than doubled his showing and at 33 percent he certainly can't be ignored, especially with seven months until the actual voting," Brown added, noting that Iowa Democratic caucus voters are generally considered more liberal than those at primaries in most other states.
The most liberal Democratic caucus voters in Iowa support Sanders over Clinton by a margin of 47 percent to 43 percent, according to the Quinnipiac survey. But Clinton bests Sanders among self-described "somewhat liberal" (54 percent-36 percent) and "moderate" or "conservative" Democrats (60 percent-17 percent).
Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley received 3 percent and former Virginia Sen. James Webb got 1 percent. Five percent were undecided.
Clinton scored an 85-10 percent favorability rating, with 75-18 percent of voters saying she’s honest and trustworthy.
Sanders received a 66-8 percent favorability rating, with 71-5 percent finding him to be honest and trustworthy.
Sanders is a registered independent who caucuses with the Democrats, but he describes himself as a democratic socialist.
His appearances in the Hawkeye State have far exceeded the campaign’s expectations.
"We have the rule of half that we teach our organizers: if 20 people say they’re going to show up, it’ll be 10," Pete D’Alessandro, the state coordinator for Sanders' Iowa operation, told Time. "But at Sen. Sanders' events, we’ve been consistently over 100 percent of our RSVPs. Until it doesn’t happen, we feel confident our turnout is going to be higher."
Sanders,
Time reports, has received campaign contributions from more than 200,000 people and he’s increasingly drawing sizable crowds, such as at New York’s LGBT Pride Parade on Sunday and at Wednesday’s
10,000-person audience in Madison, Wisconsin.
That trend is continuing in Iowa.