Hillary Clinton is regaining control of the Democratic race after her strong debate performance
A slate of new surveys found the former secretary of state has seen a solid bounce following her performance at the first Democratic debate in Las Vegas, Nevada, where pundits said she was far more polished and prepared than her rivals.
A new Public Policy Polling poll released on Tuesday, for one, found Clinton regaining her lead in New Hampshire, a state that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) has been dominating in recent months.
Among Democratic voters in the state, Clinton's support jumped to 41%, while Sanders' dropped to 33%. The poll also included Vice President Joe Biden, who had 11% support as he continues to mull a late entry into the race.
"The key for her is that she has narrowed things up among Sanders' core groups of supporters," PPP director Tom Jensen wrote. With 'very liberal' voters Sanders leads her only 43/42, with men Sanders leads her only 35/34, and with younger voters Sanders is ahead 42/34. Meanwhile Clinton remains dominant with the groups most friendly to her- she's up 50/24 with seniors, 47/31 with women, and leads by at least 8 points with every ideological group besides 'very liberal' voters.
It was the second poll of the Granite State in a handful of days that found Clinton in the lead, after more than three months of deficits. In a Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll released last Friday, Clinton held a narrow, 2-point lead over Sanders.
And nationally, Clinton has started to again cement her status as the front-runner. Consider from the past two days:
- A CNN poll found her up 45-29 over Sanders, a 3-point increase from the last CNN survey.
- An ABC/Washington Post poll gave her 54% of the vote, up 12 points from last month and a 31-point advantage.
- An NBC/Wall Street Journal survey showed her with 49% of the Democratic vote, up 7 points from last month and a 20-point lead over Sanders.
- A Monmouth University poll found her with 48% of the vote, up 6 points from last month. She had a 27-point lead over Sanders and a 31-point advantage over Biden.
"The specter of a Biden candidacy still hangs over this race, but Clinton can take comfort that she has appeared to win back some support with a solid debate performance," Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute, said on Monday.
Though polls have found a clear trend on Clinton, the post-debate surveys have showed mixed results for other candidates.
A Boston Herald/Franklin Pierce-Herald poll released Monday, for example, showed Sanders gaining a point from the previous survey, putting him 8 points ahead of Clinton in the Granite State.
And it's unclear whether Clinton's bump has come at Sanders' expense nationally.
A new CNN poll of Democratic voters nationally showed Sanders up 5 points from September - the Vermont senator now has 29% support among Democrats. But a Wall Street Journal/NBC survey on Monday showed Sanders dropping 6% points since its September survey, helping the former secretary of state widen her lead.
Some analysts have attributed some of Clinton's improving poll numbers to her strong performance in the first Democratic debate. Most Democrats surveyed in polls have also declared her the winner.