Also from
Real Clear Politics, the only reason Secretary Clinton recently widened the gap was an
NBC/WSJ poll that showed her with a 25 point lead. (Oddly, this
same polling group also found that Sanders beat Trump nationally by 15 points while Clinton only beat Trump by 10 points. See January 17 data
here.) That lead is ten points more than even a recent Fox News poll (+15). Two other recent polls had an average lead of 5.5 points. The NBC poll is such an outlier that its results seem questionable. See data below:
Senator Sanders is doing well nationally. But behind a little. What about NH and IA? RCP gives Senator Sanders a 6.2 point lead in NH. Their graph also shows trend lines that are in his favor. In IA, RCP shows Secretary Clinton with a 4 point lead. Theirgraph shows that the race was recently tied in Iowa. A look at their list of recent polls from IA indicates that the 4 point lead is only due to a recent Gravis poll that gives Secretary Clinton a 21 point lead. The next closest poll is from PPP and gives her only a 6 point lead. As with the national poll numbers discussed above, an outlier poll seems to have skewed the results somewhat in IA.
But Senator Sanders is still outperforming his national numbers in NH and doing well in IA. So he meets all the criteria of December 2007 Nate Silver. If Nate was right then, and he usually was, Senator Sanders will see more and more support sliding toward him as voters become more familiar with him.
2016
Nate Silver does seem to disagree with what he said 8 years ago:
“I could see Bernie Sanders winning a few states,” Silver said of the Vermont Independent. “New Hampshire is still very close. But[Clinton’s] chances have to be in the range of 90 to 95 percent. Trump has more of a chance than Bernie.”
But there is a definite recent slide of voters toward Senator Sanders, with a couple of outlier polls disguising that momentum. Maybe Nate needs to rethink his 2016 prediction?
Post-debate Sanders momentum:
This is heightened by the fact that, the morning after the debate, there seems to be a consensus that Sanders won. (WaPo story here) After the debate last night Chris Kofinis had a couple of tweets (link, link) that spelled good news for Senator Sanders in SC:
Very Strong Performance by Sanders. SC Focus group (30 undecided voters: 15 women, 15 men, including 14 African Americans) Sanders win big!
-------
Sanders wins SC debate in blowout - 27 for Sanders, 2 HRC, 1 O'Malley. Very strong performance..