News / Politics

Sanders catching up with Clinton, poll shows

Saturday, 06 February 2016 12:59 AM [ Last Update: Saturday, 06 February 2016 3:16 AM ]

US Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton (R) and Bernie Sanders participate in the MSNBC Democratic Candidates Debate at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, February 4, 2016. (AFP photo)

US Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has removed front-runner Hillary Clinton’s wide lead since the start of the year, putting the two in a dead heat nationally, a new poll shows.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll, released Friday, found that Clinton was leading Sanders 48 to 45 percent among Democratic voters days after their close race in Iowa caucuses, the nation's first nomination contest ahead of the November election.

Democrats had been supporting Clinton by more than a 2-to-1 margin at the beginning of 2016, but Sanders has managed to considerably narrow that gap over the past few weeks.

Earlier this week, the Vermont senator lost Iowa to Clinton by the narrowest margin in state history, capturing 49.6 percent of the vote compared to former Secretary of State’s 49.9 percent.

The race between the candidates was so close at some points that officials literally tossed coins to break ties according to caucus rules.

However, Iowa Democratic Party officials said Friday that they had found errors in the caucus results amid a review and therefore some changes in the final tally are expected.

The two hopefuls clashed sharply over a range of issues on Thursday night, in their first one-on-one televised debate.

The two candidates are barreling toward New Hampshire primaries, to be held on Tuesday, where Sanders holds a comfortable lead over Clinton.

The Reuters poll found that the former First Lady is more recognized nationally as almost all Democrats know her while nearly a quarter of Democrats and two-fifths of Independents say they are not that familiar with Sanders.

On the Republican side, real-estate mogul Donald Trump continued to lead the field with 40 percent support, a relatively unchanged level of support following his second-place finish in Iowa.

He was followed by Senator Ted Cruz of Texas with 16 percent and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida with 13 percent.

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