(Bloomberg) -- Polls show the
Democratic presidential primary in New Hampshire taking on a new dynamic about 24 hours before voting begins, with those who have made up their minds clearly preferring Bernie Sanders, but about a third still unsure.Amy Klobuchar’s rise to third in a 7 News/Emerson College tracking poll and a Suffolk University/Boston Globe/WBZ tracking poll reflects a surge after a strong debate on Friday.The polls show that about a third of voters could still change their minds, making Monday’s campaign stops around the state crucial for candidates who want to persuade voters to their side.Klobuchar got high marks for her closing argument in Friday’s debate about the need to elect someone who understands average Americans, and she has stayed out of the bickering that has marked the weekend’s campaigning. Her campaign says she has raised $3 million since Friday’s debate.“I’m also a fresh new face in politics,” Klobuchar said when asked on MSNBC Monday to compare herself with Pete Buttigieg, who is in a solid second place in the polls. “My age - 59 - is the new 38.”She added, “I’ve won statewide and that is the one thing that unites our party - we want to win and we want to win big,” she said.A UMass Lowell Center for Public Opinion poll released early Monday has her in fifth place, but rising 2 points since last week.Sanders is solidly leading in all three polls, ranking outside the margin of error. He has been exhorting his supporters to turn out and vote and that argument is more critical on Monday given the number of undecided voters.Buttigieg, the 38-year-old ex-mayor, and Sanders, the 78-year-old Vermont senator, were essentially tied in the Iowa caucus, but Buttigieg secured more delegates from Iowa to the Democratic National Convention, taking 14 to Sanders’ 12.The race gets a little murkier after the top two spots.Klobuchar’s third-place standing in the weekend tracking polls may only reflect voters’ impressions from the debate on Friday and might not hold when they get to the voting booth on Tuesday, given her fifth place finish in the more traditional UMass survey, which was taken over several days.The polls are bad news for
Joe Biden and
Elizabeth Warren, who are virtually tied for fourth and fifth place in the various surveys.For Biden, the national front-runner before Iowa’s caucuses, the low standing was a sign that he hasn’t fully regrouped from the “gut punch” fourth-place finish there. He is banking on strong showings in Nevada’s caucus on Feb. 22 and the South Carolina primary on Feb. 29 to maintain his argument that he is best suited to take on President
Donald Trump in the fall.After coming in third in Iowa, Warren was counting on a strong finish in New Hampshire, which borders Massachusetts, the state she represents in the Senate. But these polls suggest that Granite State progressives clearly prefer Sanders’ brand of democratic socialism over her “I have a plan for that” anti-corruption message.The Emerson tracking poll done for 7 News was conducted Saturday and Sunday and has a margin of error of 4.3 percentage points. The Suffolk poll had a margin of error of 4.4 percentage points and was also conducted Saturday and Sunday. UMass surveyed 440 likely New Hampshire Democratic voters and was conducted Feb. 4-7. It had a 6.5 percentage-point margin of error.(Updates with Klobuchar comment in fifth, sixth paragraph)To contact the reporter on this story: Wendy Benjaminson in Manchester, New Hampshire at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Derek Wallbank, Max BerleyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.