Voters in Iowa have shifted away from Hillary Clinton, but the source of her slump in the polls may not be Sanders’ fault as much as it is her own, CNN’s Brianna Keilar reported Thursday.
According to a new Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register poll, Hillary Clinton leads Sanders in Iowa by only two points, whereas she was leading by nine points in the same poll last month. However, her decline does not necessarily mean that Clinton supporters have switched to the Sanders camp, Keilar said.
"Forty-two points Hillary Clinton, 40 Bernie Sanders, so you see the race tightening. But what's interesting when you look at the shift here from last month, it might not be so much that people are feeling the Bern as they aren't feeling Hillary Clinton, because she has actually dipped in the polls," Keilar said, and pointed out that the number of undecided voters has jumped since last month.
"You see those undecideds—14 percent—that is actually a huge jump of people who are uncommitted from last month," Keilar said.
Keilar said that Iowa will be a "tooth-and-nail fight" for Clinton and Sanders, and said that the differentiating factor between the two for voters will be leadership versus issues.
"Democrats in … Iowa think this is an election about issues over leadership. That's significant, because people who say they're more about the issues over leadership more likely to go for Bernie Sanders. People who are more about the leadership are more likely to go for Hillary Clinton," Keilar said.