Subject: NYT: Poll Shows Hillary Clinton is Seen as More Likely than Bernie Sanders to Be Effective
From: Adrienne Elrod <[email-masked]>
To: Adrienne Elrod <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 2015 20:22:17 -0500

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/13/us/politics/poll-shows-hillary-clinton-is-seen-as-more-likely-than-bernie-sanders-to-be-effective.html?_r=0

*Poll Shows Hillary Clinton Is Seen as More Likely Than Bernie Sanders to
Be Effective*

*New York Times | November 13, 2015*

With the Democratic presidential nomination contest all but officially a
two-person race, Hillary Rodham Clinton
<http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/13/us/elections/hillary-clinton.html?inline=nyt-per>
 appears vastly better positioned than Senator Bernie Sanders
<http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/05/01/us/elections/bernie-sanders.html?inline=nyt-per>
 of Vermont to persuade party primary voters that she would be more
effective at passing her agenda and dealing with international crises,
according to a New York Times/CBS News survey released Thursday.

Mrs. Clinton even undercuts Mr. Sanders on his core political message, with
62 percent of Democratic primary voters saying she could bring about real
change in Washington, compared with 51 percent for Mr. Sanders.

The promise of change, always a popular lure in politics, is at the heart
of a striking paradox in the Democratic race. Democratic primary voters say
that the ability to deliver needed change is the most important quality
they seek in a candidate, and Mr. Sanders’s popularity is highest with
voters who want change. Yet 60 percent of Democrats also want their nominee
to continue President Obama’s policies, and these voters support Mrs.
Clinton over Mr. Sanders by about a 2-to-1 margin.

This advantage for Mrs. Clinton may reflect all-around skepticism that Mr.
Sanders’s leftist candidacy can prevail: Her party’s primary voters expect
Mrs. Clinton to be their eventual nominee by more than a 4-to-1 margin over
Mr. Sanders.

His chief indictment against Mrs. Clinton, that she is an establishment
politician who is captive to big-money special interests and inconsistent
on liberal priorities, simply has not persuaded many Democrats to abandon
her. While 84 percent of them see Mrs. Clinton as under the sway of special
interests, she is still the heavy favorite among Democratic primary voters
seeking a candidate who is a strong leader with the right experience to be
president.

And while Mr. Sanders is running as an unwavering liberal, three-quarters
of Democratic primary voters prefer a nominee who would compromise with
Republicans in Congress to get things done.

After a month of sharpened attacks by Mr. Sanders against her, Mrs. Clinton
has support from 52 percent of Democratic primary voters, while Mr. Sanders
has backing from 33 percent, the poll found. The numbers are virtually
unchanged from an early October CBS News poll, in which she led Mr.Sanders,
56 percent to 32 percent.

The nationwide telephone poll was conducted Nov. 6 to 10 on cellphones and
landlines with 1,495 adults, including 418 Democratic primary voters, and
has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus six percentage points for
Democratic primary voters.

Mrs. Clinton inspires more confidence among party members on a range of
issues than the lesser known Mr. Sanders, who is only now starting to run
biographical advertisements on television. On a signature Sanders issue,
regulating large banks and financial institutions, Mrs. Clinton inspired
confidence in 70 percent of primary voters, compared with 65 percent for
Mr. Sanders. On gun laws, 76 percent of Democratic primary voters think she
would make the right decisions compared with 57 percent for Mr. Sanders,
whose votes against some gun-control measures have been highlighted by Mrs.
Clinton.

On foreign conflicts, too, Democrats overwhelmingly expressed more faith in
the decision-making of Mrs. Clinton, a former secretary of state, than of
Mr. Sanders, a longtime antiwar figure.

“She knows all the players, all the world leaders,” Jan Lyles, 52, a
consultant in Reno, Nev., said in an interview after the poll was
completed. She added, approvingly, “She has her husband behind her for
advice.” Three-quarters of Democrats view Bill Clinton favorably.

But support for Mrs. Clinton lags in some groups of Democratic primary
voters, particularly men and younger voters. Among the misgivings is one
that has surfaced before in her political career: Fifty-two percent of
Democratic primary voters think that Mrs. Clinton says what she actually
believes, compared with 62 percent who think Mr. Sanders is genuine in his
remarks

“It’s not so much I don’t trust her, but she seems to me to say what she
thinks people want to hear,” said Jack Bernblum, 68, a self-employed
Democrat from East Haven, Conn., who is leaning toward Mr. Sanders. “She
has recently said something about legalizing marijuana, which is a brand
new position for her. I don’t think she means anything she says.”

For Mr. Sanders, who is attracting bigger crowds than Mrs. Clinton and is
running notably close to her in fund-raising, the overarching challenge is
to transform an insurgent primary campaign aimed at two must-win states,
Iowa and New Hampshire, into a formidable movement with broad national
appeal. He will face his greatest test yet on Saturday night at the second
Democratic debate, which will be televised nationally from Des Moines.
Nearly half of Democratic primary voters say they are very likely to watch
the debate, and an additional three in 10 said they were somewhat likely.

Mrs. Clinton will take the stage after a run of positive developments since
their Oct. 13 debate, including strong reviews of her performance there;
Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s decision not to enter the race; and a
steely, well-received face-off with congressional Republicans investigating
the 2012 attack on the United States diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya.

Mr. Sanders has been trying to undercut her political momentum by drawing
more contrasts on policy, noting that he has been more liberal for far
longer than her on issues like free trade, the death penalty and a
single-payer health care system. Yet his attacks have not been memorably
potent.

A third Democratic candidate, former Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland, will
also take part inSaturday’s debate, but he is trailing far behind his
rivals. He received 5 percent support in the Times/CBS News poll.

Mr. Sanders and Mr. O’Malley have room to grow if they can find a way: Half
of Democratic primary voters say it is still too early to say for sure whom
they will support. And while Mr. Sanders is running closest behind Mrs.
Clinton, four in 10 voters still do not have an opinion of him — and many
hold views that suggest they would be open to his platform.

While some Sanders allies worry that his decades-long identification as a
democratic socialist will hurt him, 56 percent of Democratic primary voters
say they hold a positive view of socialism. About nine in 10 think that the
gap between rich and poor is an urgent problem, and most would support
raising taxes on the wealthy to deal with it — one of Mr. Sanders’s major
positions — and 78 percent oppose unlimited campaign contributions to
fund-raising committees known as “super PACs
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/campaign_finance/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>,”
as does Mr. Sanders. (Mrs. Clinton is supported by a such a fund-raising
arm.)

Sue Moon, a Seattle Democrat and a retired teacher, said she did not like
Mrs. Clinton’s ties to wealthy donors and Wall Street executives, some of
whom Ms. Moon blames for the 2008 financial crisis.

I am much more in favor of the wing of the party that thinks a lot of these
people should have gone to jail,” said Ms. Moon, a Sanders supporter.

While the Republican presidential race is far more unsettled, with 15
candidates, Democrats think that Donald J. Trump, whose tough talk and
outsize personality have energized many disaffected conservatives, would be
the toughest to beat in a general election. Thirty-one percent of Democrats
said Mr. Trump would be the most formidable opponent next November, while
15 percent named the retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and 13 percent each
picked former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida.
Gov. John Kasich of Ohio and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas lagged far behind.

Luke Cottrill, a junior high school teacher and a Democrat in San
Francisco, said that Mr. Trump would be the most dangerous foe in a general
election because he is not only a political outsider but also speaks
pointedly in ways that resonate deeply with some people, while offending
others. Mr. Trump is also famous in a nation that worships celebrity, Mr.
Cottrill said.

“Donald Trump is a TV star, and Ronald Reagan was a movie star — people
know who he is,” said Mr. Cottrill, 60. “He also is a demagogue, and
sometimes we Americans are impressed by demagogues and forget about their
power over people.”

-- 

Adrienne K. Elrod
Director of Strategic Communications & Amplification
Hillary For America
*www.hillaryclinton.com <http://www.hillaryclinton.com>*
@adrienneelrod