More bad news for Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton ahead of the next Democratic presidential primary debate — millennial-aged women prefer Bernie Sanders.
A USA Today/Rock the Vote poll conducted between January 4-7, and released Thursday night, questioned over 1,100 women ages 18-34, 77% of whom were registered voters.
According to USA Today:
Sen. Bernie Sanders, 74, a Vermont independent, will head into the Democratic presidential debate Sunday with a 19-point lead over front-runner Hillary Clinton, 50% to 31%, among Democratic and independent women ages 18 to 34, according to a recent USA TODAY/Rock the Vote poll.Millennial women are among the supporters Sanders is counting on to help him pull off an upset Feb. 1 in Iowa, where his poll numbers are surging, and hold his lead in New Hampshire, which will hold a primary Feb. 9, to give him the momentum he needs to succeed in later contests where Clinton is favored.“The challenge of this election is to disprove the skeptics who believe (young people) don’t vote,” said Tad Devine, Sanders’ senior adviser. “Obama and his campaign took that on, they disproved it, it became the source of their victory. We’re trying to do the same thing.”In 2008, Obama won the Iowa caucuses, and Clinton placed third after a record attendance that nearly doubled the 2004 turnout. His greatest support came from 17- to 44-year-olds while Clinton won among those 65 and older, according to exit polls.Despite her advantages in contests after New Hampshire, Clinton could leave Iowa “weakened or politically wounded” if the “Obama effect” works in Sanders’ favor and she fails to score a resounding victory, said Dennis Goldford, a political science professor at Drake University in Des Moines.The problem for Sanders: Young people are among the most “unreliable voters” who tend to turn out only for general elections, Goldford said.The poll showed that the younger voters are, the more likely they are to be Sanders supporters.Among both genders, Sanders has 57% backing in the 18-25 age group, according to the USA TODAY/Rock the Vote poll. That drops to 36% for those ages 26-34. For Clinton, the opposite is true. She gets 44% of those ages 26 to 34 and 25% of those 18-25.
As we blogged yesterday, Clinton’s support is tanking and quickly.
Clinton’s choice to make the gender card a mainstay of her campaign might work with older demographics who want a woman president just to say we have one, but isn’t bringing any young women into the “Ready for Hillary” fold.
Hillary is also struggling to gain traction with minority demographics who have been insulted by her “tone-deafness.”
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