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Iowa And New Hampshire Could Be The Start Of A Bernie Sanders Surge

The Iowa caucuses are finally here and Bernie Sanders is surging in the polls, currently sitting atop the RealClearPolitics polling averages in both Iowa and New Hampshire, which are the first two states to vote in the Democratic Primary.

According to the RCP polling averages in both states, Sanders has an average lead of 4 points in Iowa and 9 points in New Hampshire. Sanders support fluctuated in late 2019 after a minor heart scare which led to several pundits claiming that Sanders was done and he would soon be dropping out, but of course we now see that Sanders has become even more invigorated.

In the caucuses, any candidate that does not reach 15% of the vote in the first round of voting will be eliminated and their voters will then be able to back another candidate who has reached that 15% threshold. This is extremely good news for not just Bernie Sanders but Joe Biden as well as the only candidates who are currently polling above 15% are: Bernie; 24.2%, Biden; 20.2%, Buttigieg; 16.4%, Warren; 15.6%.

This means that the voters of Tulsi Gabbard, Amy Klobuchar, Tom Steyer and Andrew Yang will have the opportunity to back another high ranking candidate in the second round of voting. Conventional wisdom suggests that Klobuchar voters will tend to back either Biden or Warren in the second round, whereas Sanders could receive the backing of large numbers of Gabbard, Steyer and Yang supporters.

Elizabeth Warren could very well also get below 15% of the vote and her voter base is split between former Bernie voters in 2016 and people who are vehemently anti-Sanders. 32% of Warren's voters second choice is Bernie Sanders, compared to 23% of Warren supporters choosing to back Biden in the second round.

New Hampshire is very more favourable to Bernie Sanders as he currently has a 9 point lead with 26.5% of the vote compared to Joe Biden's 17.5% - no other candidate reaches the 15% threshold, meaning that with Sanders having an already established lead and being a large number of voters second choice candidate, New Hampshire should be easier for Sanders to win as opposed to Iowa.

Sanders has taken a lead in several other states and even nationally in some polls, closing Biden's 15 point lead down to just 3.7 points.

Another thing that Sanders has in his bag in the ability to bring new voters into the political process and vastly outperform his polling. For example, during the 2016 Democratic Primary in Iowa, Sanders was only expected to get around 40-43% of the vote but ended up receiving 49.6 compared to Hillary Clinton's 49.9%. Some delegates in Iowa were even decided by coin toss because of how close it actually was. Even in New Hampshire Sanders was expected to receive around 50% of the vote but ended up getting over 60%.

This recent Sanders surge has led to establishment Democrats beginning to worry about losing their grip on power, with several dark money Super PACs  such as 'Democratic Majority for Israel' using their money to attack Sanders via TV advertisements in Iowa, claiming that he would be unable to defeat Donald Trump in a general election, when in actuality Sanders polls the best against Trump, even in super conservative states such as Texas, and has around a 10 point lead among independent voters - the largest voting block in the country.
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