Yes, Bernie Polls Better Against Trump Than Hillary—But There’s A Catch
For example, the most recent poll, the NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll, showed Clinton beating Trump by 3 points and Sanders beating Trump by 15 points. That means Sanders bested Clinton’s performance by 12 points. In other polls, Sanders’s lead on Clinton was less but never fell below a margin of 3 points.
Case closed? Not quite, say polling experts.
Clinton has been scrutinized and attacked as a public figure for a quarter century, but Sanders—even after running for president for a year—is a relatively new figure to voters nationally. It remains to be seen how open voters will be to supporting Sanders once Republicans start airing negative attacks, especially ones that note his identification as a democratic socialist. (According to polls, being a socialist is a less attractive quality for voters than being an atheist.)
“General election polls don’t mean much until the conventions are over and you get to late summer or early fall,” said Kerwin Swint, a political scientist at Kennesaw State University. “A lot of voters don’t look at Sanders as a legitimate threat. It’s almost like he’s an imaginary candidate.”
And it’s worth adding, as Meet the Press host Chuck Todd noted, that Clinton can be expected to poll better against Trump after she officially secures the nomination and many former Sanders supporters come to her side.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/05/29/yes-bernie-polls-better-against-trump-than-hillary-but-there-s-a-catch.html
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