New Bernie Sanders Polls Show Big Trouble: Clinton Takes ‘Resounding’ Maryland Lead, Also Tops California
New polls issued just before the New York Primary show Bernie Sanders running into serious trouble in upcoming Democratic primary states, with Hillary Clinton building a massive lead in Maryland, which votes just one week after New York, and holdng a steady, double-digit margin in California.
California is the final state to vote in the Democratic presidential primary race, holding its election on June 7 — but California is also the biggest state in the race with a staggering 475 pledged delegates available, almost twice as many as the second-biggest state, New York with 247, which held its primary on Tuesday.
ATTENTION CALIFORNIA VOTERS!!!!! VERY IMPORTANT if you want to vote for Bernie in the California Primary. You… https://t.co/mnylZsjChk
— Sally Hampton (@sallyhampton) April 17, 2016
The Democratic race, however, may be effectively decided before Californians ever go to the ballot box, if the new and recent polls in the states that vote immediately after New York prove to be accurate. With five states voting on Tuesday, April 26, Bernie Sanders appears at risk of suffering a shutout. If that happens, he would have no realistic way to win the Democratic nomination.
Watch Bernie Sanders talk about the race on the NBC Today Show on Monday, April 18, in the video below.
Maryland and Pennsylvania hold their primaries next Tuesday, with 95 and 118 pledged delegates respectively. The smaller states of Connecticut with 55, Rhode Island, 24, and Delaware, 21 delegates, also hold their Democratic primaries on April 26.
The results of a new poll released April 19 by Public Policy Polling paint an especially bleak picture for Sanders in Maryland. The PPP poll shows Hillary Clinton with a whopping 58 percent of the vote, giving her an equally whopping 25 percentage point lead over Bernie Sanders in the state.
“Hillary Clinton looks to be headed for a resounding victory, with 58% to 33% for Bernie Sanders,” PPP wrote in a press release accompanying their release of the poll, which came out on the same day as the New York Primary.
“Clinton’s key is that she’s winning African Americans, who are likely to be close to 40 percent of the Democratic primary electorate, 70/25. She has a more narrow lead with white voters at 50/41.”
The PPP poll is the third Maryland poll issued in April, and compared to the previous two polls, the latest result shows Clinton actually expanding her lead over Sanders there.
Thank you #Maryland for primary early voting. Not just a civic duty, but a privilege pic.twitter.com/yqrYEsK9ao
— Fernando Pizarro (@FPizarro_DC) April 16, 2016
An NBC 4/Marist College poll on April 9 put Clinton 22 points ahead while a Washington Post/University of Maryland poll on April 3 put Clinton just 15 points ahead of Sanders, who now has one week to stop the bleeding in that state.
Sanders is doing somewhat better in Pennsylvania, where he held a rally on April 19 rather than stay in New York to await primary results there. The latest poll in Pennsylvania, taken by Fox News from April 4 to April 7, showed Clinton with an 11-point lead in Pennsylvania. An April 4 Quinnipiac poll put Clinton only six points ahead of Sanders in the state.
The FiveThirtyEight polling average shows a 13.6-point Pennsylvania lead for Clinton.
Little polling data is available in the other three April 26 primary states. One poll, by Emerson College, was released in Connecticut this month. The April 10-11 survey put Clinton ahead by six points in the New England state, that also contains numerous bedroom communities for New York commuters.
A Brown University poll in Rhode Island taken in February showed Clinton ahead by nine points, but no new polling has since been completed. In Delaware, no polls have been conducted.
That’s not the case in California, however, with a CBS News/YouGov poll released on Sunday showing Hillary Clinton leading Bernie Sanders by 12 percentage points in the Golden State. The poll is slightly down for Hillary Clinton from a KABC/SurveyUSA poll on April 4, which had Sanders behind by 14 points.
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Hillary Clinton holds her advantage in Maryland due largely to her big lead among African-American voters and women, two constituencies with which she has consistently performed well — but Clinton also holds a surprising lead among men in Maryland, 61 percent to 32 percent, over Bernie Sanders according to the new PPP poll.
[Featured Photos By Spencer Platt/Justin Sullivan/Getty Images]
