Despite 2016 hopeful Hillary Clinton’s image woes, the former secretary of state still maintains a higher favorability rating than her biggest primary rival Sen. Bernie Sanders, a new survey says.
Ahead of the first Democratic debate, hosted by CNN in Las Vegas Tuesday, Clinton’s image rates 12 points higher than Sanders, coming in at 52 percent and 40 percent respectively.
The Gallup poll shows that while the former first lady is favored by more Democrats as a whole, Sanders is more popular with whites and college graduates.
Clinton has a big advantage in terms of name recognition, just 60 percent of Democrats surveyed knew who the Vermont senator was while 90 percent knew of Clinton.
Although the former New York senator leads the the self-proclamed socialist by a double-digit margin, she has not been immune to effects of the ongoing email scandal that has been plaguing her campaign.
The Democratic frontrunner, once considered a shoo-in for the nomination, has slipped from the 36 point lead she held in late-July.
“Clinton began the 2016 Democratic campaign in much the same way she entered the 2008 Democratic primary: as the best-known, best-liked candidate and the one most pundits and political analysts viewed as the prohibitive front-runner,” Gallup said in its findings, adding that her trajectory has been slightly different than her last presidential run.” But in both instances, “Clinton’s own missteps as well as the increasing popularity of a previously underestimated challenger have made the primary contest more competitive than initial assessments might have suggested.”
The results were based on phone interviews of a random sampling of 5,943 adults identifying as Democrats from Sept. 12- Oct. 10, and leaves a margin of error of plus-or-minus 4 percent.
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