STOP IN NEVADA: Will Hillary’s campaign ever get off the ground? The Hill‘s Amie Parnes has the latest numbers, and dishes with a former Clinton aide:
A new CNN/ORC poll released Wednesday found Clinton with a 1-point lead in Nevada, which hosts its caucuses on Saturday. That’s a huge change from the 23-point lead Clinton enjoyed in a late December poll by Gravis.
In South Carolina, which hosts its primary election on Feb. 27, Clinton has a more comfortable 18-point lead according to a CNN/ORC poll. But even that edge has narrowed since Sanders crushed her in New Hampshire’s primary last week.
As recently as mid-January, a poll from NBC, The Wall Street Journal and Marist found Clinton with a 33-point lead in South Carolina.
“I don’t get it. I don’t think anyone expected this race to look like this,” said one former Clinton aide who maintains ties with the campaign. “A big loss in New Hampshire, basically a tie going into Nevada. You have to ask yourself, ‘What’s next?’ ”
Team Clinton maintains confidence that its lead in South Carolina will hold, but the potential loss in Nevada has put people on edge about a “domino effect” in which states could fall one by one to Sanders as he gains momentum.
“It’s hard to feel confident about South Carolina if you lose Nevada,” the former aide said.
Clinton’s lead in Nevada is statistically gone, her advantage in South Carolina has been cut nearly in half, and Sanders has the hip, young voters building a digital grassroots effort to counter Clinton’s edge in money and muscle.
Among the other signs of worry on ClintonWorld might be the campaign’s new one-minute spot called “Brave,” which CNN says shows “a 10-year-old girl who starts crying while telling Clinton at a campaign event that she’s afraid of her parents being deported.”
While the spot might appear ham-fisted to some, it ought to at least generate lots of feelz among Hillary supporters — if, at this writing, it had received something substantially more than 218 YouTube views. And that’s hours after having gotten a nice write-up and link from CNN.com.
“Flailing” might not be too strong a word to describe the Clinton campaign’s efforts so far this week.