Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton remains the favorite to win the Democratic presidential primary in early 2016 but she is starting to hear the footsteps of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
St. Pete Polls released a survey taken for St. Petersblog on Thursday of likely Democratic primary voters and Clinton gets a majority of those surveyed.
Clinton takes 55 percent of Florida Democrats. Sanders has been surging in national and state polls, emerging as the chief liberal alternative to Clinton. In the new poll, Sanders stands in solid second with 29 percent.
The rest of the candidates are not factors in the Sunshine State. Former U.S. Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., pulls 2 percent. Former Gov. Martin O’Malley, D-Md., takes 1 percent. Former U.S. Sen. and Gov. Lincoln Chafee, D-R.I., lags behind with less than 1 percent.
The poll of 1,080 likely Florida Democratic primary voters was taken from July 18-28 and had a margin of error of +/- 3 percent.
“The poll was conducted through a Web-based email polling system,” St. Pete Polls noted. “The results were then weighted to account for proportional differences between the respondents' demographics and the demographics of the active Republican primary election voter population for the state of Florida. The weighting demographics used were: race, age, gender and media market. The voters polled were chosen at random within the registered voter population within the state of Florida. The random sample used was made up of a sampling of registered Democratic Party voters from the state of Florida.”
Reach Kevin Derby at kderby@sunshinestatenews.com or follow him on Twitter: @KevinDerbySSN
