Second rate, and now, in second place:
The long-presumed Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is trailing Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders by seven percentage points in the latest survey of New Hampshire, a Boston Herald and Franklin Pierce University poll shows.
Sanders leads [Mrs.] Clinton 44% to 37%, and Joe Biden follows with 9% support, even though he has yet to announce his candidacy.
All other candidates — former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, former Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee and former Virginia Governor Jim Webb — received 1% or less in the poll.
The poll surveyed forty-four Democrat primary voters August 7th in the Granite State and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.7%.
Just to provide a baseline, back in March Hillary led Weekend Bernie 44%-7%, and even just last week she was still up 42%-36%. Sanders' Granite State surge could be attributed at least in part to his next-door "favorite son" status and his increasing name recognition across the national Democrat base, reflecting all the Nutrooters that don't like or trust Mrs. Clinton and never have. But this latest poll illustrates that Sanders isn't just picking up disaffected anti-Hillary Dems, he's starting to take support from the Empress directly. As her scandals grow worse and worse, and the Hillary Trap squeezes tighter and tighter, and 2016 defeat looks more and more inescapable, leftwingnuts are grasping any straw they can get their drowning hands on. Even if it's a crazy old commie coot from Ben & Jerry-Land.
That's reflected in a number of polling metrics. Rodham and Sanders are comparable in favorability (80-76), but the "enthusiasm gap" ("very favorable" vs. "favorable") is heavily in Weekend Bernie's favor (54-36). Which I interpret as Democrat primary voters believing Sanders' "progressive" bona fides versus not believing pretty much anything Mrs. Clinton says. Maybe a better term for it would be "authenticity gap".
The Herald/FPU survey did directly ask about enthusiasm, and that produced similar but more muted results. Of Hillary's remaining backers, her "enthusiastic/unenthusiastic" rating was 35/51, while Senator Sanders' was 44/36. This reflects two respective factors, I believe: (1) Mrs. Clinton's remaining supporters are resigned to their choice, and will hardly crawl across broken glass and rusty razor blades through flaming walls of rabid rattlesnakes to push her across the 11/8/16 finish line; and (2) while Sanders definitely energizes the Donk base more than Her Nib does, Dems don't seriously believe that he would have any realistic chance in the general election campaign.
It's much like the pyrrhic choice that faced Dems in 2004: The candidate of their hearts (Howard Dean) who would have gone down, Hindenburg-like, as George McGovern did in '72, versus the "electable" John Kerry, who also nevertheless fell short. I've always said that the Left believes that they made a fatal mistake by going with Lurch, and that they are convinced that Dean would have taken out Dubya that November, and vowed never to make that mistake again. And, in 2008, they didn't, going with Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton, and, in their minds, the rest is history.
But how much worse is that conundrum this time? As much as the Democrat base likes Weekend Bernie, even they can't convince themselves that he wouldn't get slaughtered, just as Hillary would. It could be a case of, "If we're going to go down, let's not 'settle'".
The noteworthy thing to me is that when Sanders first roared into national prominence a couple of months back, I recall predicting that he'd overtake Hillary by Labor Day. Which means she's fading faster than even I anticipated.
As an interesting postscript, to get on the New Hampshire primary ballot, you have to register your candidacy in the party whose nomination you are seeking. Which is a bit of a sticky wicket for Sanders, since he's still not "officially" a Democrat. "No problem," says the New Hampshire Democrat Party, "we'll certify him right now." However, any Granite Stater with standing can challenge that certification in court. The question is, would La Clinton Nostra do so? Not in the "Would they really do something so dirty and petty and underhanded?" sense - of course, they would. But the optics of such a blatant act of desperation would be horrendous. "Hillary knew she was going to lose and be hugely embarrassed, so she had her authentically 'progressive' challenger pulled from the ballot on a technicality" is not the way to both reconcile disgruntled Nutrooters to your cause AND get them to turn out for you. It is a way to deepen an already burgeoning Democrat Civil War that would guarantee landslide Democrat defeat next November.
As I say, Elizabeth Warren has got to be kicking herself for passing up this plumb opportunity. Will you-know-who make that same mistake?
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