Since Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats but identifies as a socialist, began surging in the 2016 presidential polls in New Hampshire,
Hillary Clinton’s surrogates have gone on the attack, a sure sign that they’re concerned.
"When your opponents and people who represent them wade into the conversation with attacks against you, for us it’s a recognition of the fact that something must be working," Sanders’s senior adviser
Tad Devine told The Hill. "It’s a basic rule in politics that you don’t attack somebody if they are not doing well."
A new CNN/WMUR New Hampshire Primary poll puts Clinton with just an 8-point lead over Sanders in the Granite State, a sharp contrast from May when Clinton enjoyed 51 percent to Sanders’s 13 percent. In the latest poll, Clinton dropped to 43 percent and Sanders jumped to 35 percent.
His numbers have particularly surged among men and liberal voters, according to the poll results.
That same poll found Vice President Joe Biden with 8 percent, and 2 percent or less supporting former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb and Lincoln Chafee, a former governor and U.S. senator from Rhode Island.
Other recent Iowa polls, including a Suffolk University poll and a Morning Consult survey, put Sanders within 10 points and 12 points, respectively, of the former secretary of state, according to The Hill.
Simultaneous Bloomberg polls conducted June 19-22 in Iowa and New Hampshire found Clinton leading Sanders 50 percent to 24 percent in the Hawkeye State and 56 percent to 24 percent in New Hampshire.
"That's a six- to eight-point increase in his support since those states were polled by Bloomberg Politics and partners in May," the publication reports.
During a Thursday morning appearance on MSNBC’s "Morning Joe," Clinton supporter and Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill accused Sanders of holding views that are "extreme" and "unrealistic," and said the media were giving him a pass by "not giving the same scrutiny to Bernie Sanders that they are giving to certainly Hillary Clinton and the other candidates."
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The New York Times reported that, since February, Clinton’s favorable ratings have dropped by some 20 points while Sanders' are ascending.
"And his negatives are lower than hers," the newspaper points out. "So their net favorability ratings (favorable minus unfavorable) are now equal, at 55 percent."
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