Sanders, Trump Seem Poised to Win With Only Two Days to Go
02/07/2016
Detailed poll results are available at www.uml.edu/polls.
UMass Lowell representatives are available for interviews about today’s poll results.
Contact: Christine Gillette, 978-758-4664 (c), 978-934-2209 (w), Christine_Gillette@uml.edu
The seventh day of results from the UMass Lowell/7News tracking poll of 1,400 New Hampshire voters who were surveyed about candidates in the Feb. 9 Democratic and Republican primaries include:
- -- With only two days before the primary, both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are solidifying their places as the frontrunners in their respective races. Sanders, after four consecutive days of losing ground to Hillary Clinton, increased his lead two points and is now ahead 17 points, 57 percent to Clinton’s 40 percent among likely Democratic primary voters. Sanders appears poised to win in New Hampshire unless there is a last-minute surge by Clinton.
- -- Trump, who has led by double-digits every day of the UMass Lowell/7NEWS tracking poll and is at 36 percent in today’s results, picked up one point, giving him a 22-point lead over his nearest challenger, Marco Rubio, who has the support of 14 percent of likely Republican primary voters. Rubio, Cruz (13 percent) and Jeb Bush (10 percent) remained steady. John Kasich dropped 1 point to 9 percent, followed by Chris Christie at 4 percent (no change), Carly Fiorina at 4 percent (up 1 percent) and Ben Carson at 3 percent (no change).
- -- Although Trump gained support and most of the other Republican candidates saw their support remain the same since yesterday’s results, a high percentage of likely voters – 43 percent – still say there is a chance they could change their mind about who they will vote for on Tuesday. Of the leading candidates, Rubio has the highest percentage of voters (54 percent) in this category and as he, Cruz, Bush and Kasich are all polling very close to each other, the race for second place appears to be wide open. Tomorrow’s results, the last in the tracking poll, will likely show any impact of Saturday night’s GOP debate on the race.
- -- Among likely Democratic primary voters, Sanders’ support in New Hampshire continues to be made up of Independent voters (62 percent of those polled say they support Sanders) and young voters (89 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds and 88 percent of 30- to 39-year-olds). Today’s results include two full days of data collected after Thursday’s Democratic debate and it appears that Sanders was not only able to protect his lead over Clinton, but grow it. With no other debates set for the two Democrats before Tuesday’s vote, Clinton may have exhausted high-profile opportunities to cut into her opponent’s lead and Sanders is likely to continue to pose a challenge as the campaign moves to South Carolina and Nevada.
- -- Today’s tracking poll results include data on six hypothetical head-to-head match-ups in the general election between Sanders and Clinton and the three highest-polling Republican candidates, Trump, Rubio and Cruz. In those match-ups, Sanders beats his opponents by double-digits, Trump by 22 percent, Rubio by 20 percent and Cruz by 27 percent. Clinton beats Trump and Cruz by a smaller margin, 6 percent, but loses to Rubio by 5 percent.
- -- Despite Sanders’ lead in among likely primary voters and performance in the hypothetical head-to-head match-ups, a plurality of New Hampshire voters polled (28 percent) say they think Clinton is the most likely to be the next president. Eighteen percent said Sanders and 17 percent said Trump. None of the other candidates polled higher than 10 percent and 23 percent of those surveyed said “don’t know” when asked who they think the next president will be.
More information about today’s tracking poll results – including analysis, time-trend information for each day of the tracking poll, topline and crosstabs – are available at www.uml.edu/polls.
Each night through Feb. 7, the UMass Lowell/7NEWS tracking poll is asking New Hampshire voters, including likely Democratic and Republican primary voters, about who they plan to vote for, how firm they are on that choice and who they think will be the next president be. Poll results are being released daily at 7 a.m. through Monday, Feb. 8.
Results of the poll being reported today are based on interviews with a random sample of 1,413 New Hampshire registered voters and a sub-sample of 428 Democratic primary likely voters and 516 Republican primary likely voters. Data was collected in live interviewers via landline and cellular telephones over the last three nights. The survey used a probability-based, random-digit-dial methodology with a dual-frame design for landline and cellular telephone surveys conducted by live interviewers. Final results are weighted to correct known demographic discrepancies based on the American Community Survey for New Hampshire. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.97 percent for all registered voters, plus or minus 4.82 percent for likely Republican primary voters and plus or minus 5.38 percent for likely Democratic primary voters. Additional details on methodology are available at www.uml.edu/polls.
The independent, nonpartisan poll was conducted by UMass Lowell’s Center for Public Opinion in partnership with 7News. More than 12,000 UMass Lowell graduates, students and employees are New Hampshire residents. The Center for Public Opinion hosts programs and conducts polls on political, social, economic and cultural issues to provide real-world opportunities for civic engagement, research and experiential learning to the campus and the community.
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