The new New Hampshire poll has already been front-paged, so I'll skip that one (Congratulations Sanders supporters!).
A few new polls are out in addition to that one. From Roanoke College we see a Virginia poll. This one has some interesting questions in addition to those about the 2016 election.
There's a Montmouth South Carolina poll out today, too.
Iowa go polled again, too. It must be a day ending in "y."
Roanoke College Poll
The makeup of the poll seems pretty solid, 47% male, 53% female, a good bell curve around age, 20% African American, 6% Hispanic, and a reasonable Party breakdown:
Democrat 34%
Republican 28%
Independent 16%
Other 9%
No party/Refused 14%
Before get to the straight politics, there were a few other questions that were interesting (at least, to me they were):
46. Do you happen to know if you had any relatives who fought in the Civil War?
Yes 31%
No 43%
Unsure 24%
Refused 1%
46.a. [IF YES] Did your relatives fight for the South or the North?
South 52%
North 14%
Relatives on both sides 24%
Unsure 10%
Refused 1%
Hmmm. I've got to wonder how much family myth is built into some of those answers.
Contrary to what we're seeing in the legislatures, choice and Planned Parenthood remain pretty popular:
47. Do you think abortion should be legal under any circumstances, legal only under certain
circumstance, or illegal in all circumstances?
Legal under any circumstances 31%
Legal only under certain circumstance 46%
Illegal in all circumstances 17%
Unsure 4%
Refused 2%
48. Do you have a generally favorable or unfavorable view of group Planned Parenthood?
Favorable 41%
Unfavorable 30%
Mixed/Unsure 25%
Refused 4%
And now, let's get to the match-ups:
Hillary Clinton, the Democrat 45%
Donald Trump, the Republican 32%
Unsure 23%
Hillary Clinton, the Democrat 42%
Jeb Bush, the Republican 41%
Unsure 18%
Hillary Clinton, the Democrat 42%
Scott Walker, the Republican 38%
Unsure 20%
Hillary Clinton, the Democrat 41%
Marco Rubio, the Republican 40%
Unsure 19%
Monmouth University South Carolina Poll
Trump is absolutely crushing the competition in South Carolina. I won't give results of the whole clown car, but here are the leading candidates:
Trump 30%
Carson 15%
Bush 9%
Fiorina 6%
Rubio 6%
I find the whole Favorable/Unfavorable discussion pretty meaningless. This poll is pretty good evidence of that. Compare those numbers to the Fav/Unfav results, and look at the difference:
Fav Unfav ? Diff
Carson 72% 9% 19% +63
Rubio 58% 16% 26% +42
Fiorina 55% 15% 31% +40
Trump 58% 28% 14% +30
Bush 52% 32% 16% +20
If the Fav/Unfav number really matters, Trump wouldn't be crushing the competition.
Finally, while South Carolina is the first primary state with a large minority population, it's not on the Republican side. This poll was 50% male and 96% white.
Suffolk University Iowa Poll
The breakdown was 57% female, 90% white, and 4% each African American and Latino.
If the Democratic caucus were held today, the votes would break down like this:
Clinton 54%
Sanders 20%
Biden 11%
This was interesting -I've not seen this question before. For people who did not pick Clinton as their candidate, they were asked why. The answers polling more than 5% were:
“Like other candidate better”----------------------------------- 18%
“Untrustworthy/Dishonest”-------------------------------------- 9%
“Email controversy” ---------------------------------------------- 9%
“Has a lot of baggage/Issues” --------------------------------- 5%
Sanders had the best numbers for honesty and trustworthiness at 32%, 3 points ahead of Clinton.
Clinton had the best numbers for "best understands the problems facing people like you" (39% v. 32%) and "best represents the values of Democrats like yourself" (40% vs. 31%).
Sanders is no longer an unknown. Only 2% of respondents said they'd never heard of him.
The Favorable/Unfavorable numbers, also, favor Clinton over Sanders, but Biden seems to be liked the most (again,see the difference between who people would vote for and who people like- that's why I think this is one of the most overrated created-for-the-horserace numbers in all of polling):
Fav Unfav Diff
Clinton 83% 9% 74%
Biden 88% 6% 82%
Sanders 76% 8% 68%
70% of respondents said they were not bothered by Clinton email reports, and 76% said they did not think she broke the law.
Conclusion
Clinton remains incredibly strong among Democrats. They really like Biden, but they'll really vote for Clinton. Sanders is no longer an unknown, but he continues to trail Clinton.
On the Republican side, Trump continues to dominate, Bush and Rubio are the strongest candidates in a general election, and they really love Carson.
Also, Walker and Cruz continue to disappear, and Christie is going to have to spend the rest of his life convincing himself that he would have won if he'd run in 2012.