Franklin Pierce/Boston Herald Poll Shows Sanders Still Leading Clinton in New Hampshire
Oct 18, 2015
Franklin Pierce University and the Boston Herald released their most recent Presidential Poll leading up to the 2016 “First in the Nation” New Hampshire primary. The release of the Franklin Pierce/Boston Herald Poll took place at 9:30 am, Monday, during a live broadcast on Boston Herald radio, WMEX 1510 AM and WCRN 830 AM.
Following the first major debate among the Democratic presidential candidates, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders (48%) has opened a 10-point lead over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (38%) even in spite of a strong debate performance by Clinton, a debate in which many thought she had won. Sanders lead has increased from an August poll that showed him with a 44-37 percent lead over Clinton among likely Democratic New Hampshire primary voters.
While Hillary Clinton continues to maintain a high favorability rating among likely Democratic primary voters, her favorability has slipped from 84 percent in March to 74 percent (down 10-points) in this most recent poll and her unfavorable rating is up 11-points to 23 percent. Meanwhile Bernie Sanders’ favorability rating continues to climb. It was at 56 percent in March, 76 percent in August and is now at 83 percent with his unfavorable ratings moving up slightly from 8 percent in August to 11 percent.
The most interesting piece to the puzzle is Vice President Joe Biden, who has not
yet declared his intentions to run for President, although there is strong speculation
that he will announce his candidacy within the next 48 hours based on reports from
Fox News and MSNBC. Biden registers a very high favorable rating of 83 percent, up
from 65 percent in March, while his unfavorable rating dropped from 29 to 8 percent
during the same time period. If Biden were to run, the poll indicates he would pull
19 percent of the vote, trailing both Sanders at 38 percent and Clinton at 30 percent.
Franklin Pierce University President Andy Card, who served in the White House for three different U.S. presidents, and is best known for being chief of staff to President George W. Bush, also reveals the importance of this most recent poll.
“This latest Franklin Pierce/Boston Herald poll lends credibility to a Biden candidacy,” says Card. “It also shows that the Democratic nomination is not a lock for anyone."
The good news for Clinton? She is still widely considered to be the likely nominee. Almost two-thirds of likely Democratic primary voters believe that Hillary Clinton (64%) will win the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party, followed by Bernie Sanders (13%) and Joe Biden (8%).
Meanwhile, there is both good news and bad news for other democratic candidates. The good news is that they are more widely recognized by voters. The bad news is that both Senator Jim Web and Senator Lincoln Chaffee saw their unfavorability rating rise to 37% and 38% respectively. Gov. Martin O’Malley came in at 19% unfavorable.
The poll was conducted October 14-17, 2015, by political pollster Kelly Myers, a Fellow at the university’s Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications and president of RKM Communication. The survey is based on a sample of 403 likely Democratic presidential primary voters in New Hampshire. The margin of error is +/- 4.9 percent.
