Sanders Gains on Clinton During His First Month in the Race

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has doubled his poll standing over the past month while Hillary Clinton has shed 9 points, according to the latest CNN poll.

Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, though, has consistently been drawing the support of just 1 percent of Democratic voters since December.

Clinton, who was the pick of 69 percent of voters last month, is now at 60 percent. Sanders, meanwhile, jumped from 5 percent to 10 percent. Fourteen percent of those polled picked Joe Biden, but it’s unclear if the vice president is going to vie for the Oval Office.

Sanders told CNN today that his campaign is “working out very, very well.”

“We just came back from a trip to New Hampshire and to Iowa and to Minnesota. The crowds were incredible. We had over 4,000 people out in Minnesota. In a small town in Iowa, we had more people coming out that what lived in the town. Crowds in New Hampshire were very, very large as well. So I think we’re doing pretty good,” he said.

The poll found 46 percent agreeing with the statement that Sanders “represents the past,” while 45 percent said that about Clinton.

Still, Sanders insisted that he can convince people he represents the future “because we’re going to talk about the issues facing the working families of this country.”

“The fact that for 40 years the great American middle class is disappearing. The fact that we have an obscene level of income and wealth inequality today…. People are very frightened, especially seniors and older workers. They get people like Rick Perry and others who want to cut Social Security. My view, we expand Social Security. We rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, create millions of decent paying jobs. Those are the ideas that resonate, I believe, with the American people,” he said.

“…Look, what Perry and these other guys have talked about, this is the decade long attack on Social Security by the Republican Party. They want to privatize it eventually, they want to make cuts. We have millions of seniors struggling, $12,000, $13,000, $14,000 a year. I will not accept cutting.”

Sanders bumped into Clinton in New York the other day. He characterized it as a “friendly conversation.”

“It’s kind of private,” he said. “Private, private conversation.”