Hillary Clinton has held onto and enhanced her strong lead over Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary according to a new national poll from Monmouth University:
Turning to the Democratic nomination contest, the poll found that a majority of voters (55%) who identify or lean toward the Democratic Party prefer Hillary Clinton as the nominee, compared to 37% who support Bernie Sanders. These results are basically unchanged from January when Clinton held a 52% to 37% lead over Sanders. Clinton has the advantage among both female (59% to 32%) and male (51% to 44%) Democrats. She also enjoys solid support from traditional Democratic identifiers (61% to 31% for Sanders) and voters age 50 and older (69% to 22%).
Clinton continues to crush it among older voters and solid Democrats, with Sanders having his own strengths. However, there are warning signs for the future that need to be addressed:
Sanders is still getting more support than Clinton from leaning Democratic voters (56% to 37% for Clinton) and voters under 50 years old (54% to 39%). Two-thirds of Sanders supporters say they Monmouth University Polling Institute 3/23/16 3 would definitely (28%) or probably (37%) vote for Clinton in November if she became the nominee, but with their candidate still in the hunt, another 11% say they probably would not vote for Clinton and 20% say they definitely would not vote for her if she became the nominee.
That's a whopping 31% of current Sanders supporters who say they won't or probably won't get behind Clinton as the nominee. Maybe the thick of the primary season isn't the best time to ask this question, but it's still a troublingly high number.
Additionally, the new Quinnipiac national poll has Hillary up by 12...but this arguably an even better result for her as their previous poll from six weeks ago had her up by only two points.
With the delegate math looking like it does, and with Hillary's national lead not budging, the time for Bernie to change the tone of his campaign to one of progressive unity is fast approaching.
We've got a White House to win and a future to save. Together.
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UPDATE: This is turning into a huge polling day. A brand new Fox News poll has Hillary leading Bernie 55%-42%. This is a 16-point shift in her favor since their poll from about a month ago which had Bernie leading by 3!
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Originally posted at HillaryHQ.com