Bernie Sanders is currently leading Hillary Clinton among likely Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire.
According to a Franklin Pierce University/Boston Herald poll released Wednesday, the Independent Vermont senator is favored by 44 percent of Democratic voters in the state, while the former secretary of state has 37 percent support.
The survey, conducted between August 7 and 10, comes as controversy surrounding Clinton’s use of a private email system during her time at the State Department continues to swell.
The Clinton campaign confirmed Tuesday that the Democratic presidential candidate will turn over her personal email server to the Department of Justice as the FBI pursues its criminal probe into the security of her email system.
The inspector general of the intelligence community has determined that no less than two of Clinton’s work-related emails of the 40 on her personal system he was permitted to review contained "top secret" information. In total, seven contained classified information at the time they were sent.
A survey released last week indicated that Sanders’ support among New Hampshire Democrats is six times what it was before the Clinton email scandal broke.
Sanders has been surging among Democrats nationwide as well as in New Hampshire. A Quinnipiac University poll released at the end of July demonstrated that Sanders has seen his favorable score jump 13 percentage points since May.
At a campaign rally in Oregon over the weekend, the Vermont senator drew a crowd of 28,000, five times the size of the audience that attended Clinton’s official campaign launch in New York two months prior.
Indeed, experts have indicated that Clinton could encounter a problem against Sanders in multiple states, including New Hampshire.
During a recent presentation on the current state of the presidential election, Real Clear Politics senior elections analyst Sean Trende forecasted that Sanders could become "dangerous" for Clinton in Iowa and New Hampshire, two key early-voting states.
Trende also contended that Sanders could pose a threat in Minnesota, Massachusetts and Vermont, though he observed that the email controversy has had more of a "substantial impact" on her general elections numbers than on her support among likely Democratic voters.
"The fact that her poll numbers are softening in the general election is definitely something to keep an eye on," Trende explained.
While New Hampshire liberals may be resigned to supporting Clinton, they aren’t particularly excited about the presidential candidate. According to the polling released Wednesday, only 35 percent of likely Democratic primary voters describe themselves as "excited" about Clinton’s presidential bid.
Fifty-one percent admit themselves unenthusiastic, though ultimately they could support her.