Day 3 of the 7 News/ Emerson College tracking poll of the New Hampshire Democratic Primary finds former Mayor Pete Buttigieg with a bounce out of Iowa as his numbers increased from 12% on Monday to 17% on Tuesday night. This separates him from the field and places him in second behind the frontrunner, Senator Bernie Sanders, whose numbers held at 32%. Former VP Joe Biden comes in third at 13%, followed by Senator Amy Klobuchar at 11%, and Senator Elizabeth Warren at 11%. No other candidate reached double digits. Data was collected February 2-4, 2020, but today’s data was collected after the Iowa Democratic Party announced the partial results of the Iowa caucus mixed mode, n=500, margin of error +/- 4.3%. 



Since yesterday, Sanders and Biden have held their support, Buttigieg has gained 5%, Warren has lost 2%, and Klobuchar has lost 1%. 

Spencer Kimball, Director of Emerson College Polling explains that “Bernie may have gotten his bounce yesterday as his Iowa poll numbers gave him front runner status and his New Hampshire numbers increased from 29% to 32% between day 1 and 2 of the track, but with the news today of Pete’s Iowa performance he saw his own 5 point bounce between day 2 and 3.”

Continuing the trend found in the Emerson College tracking polls, Sanders pulls very strong support from younger voters. Among voters under 50 years old, he leads with 42%, followed by Buttigieg with 11%, and Warren and Gabbard with 10%. Among voters 50 and over, Sanders holds a smaller lead with 23% support, followed by Buttigieg with 21%, Biden with 20% and Klobuchar with 13%. 

Sanders holds a strong lead among “very liberal” voters garnering 54% support among that group. Following him among those voters is Warren with 19% and Buttigieg with 11%. Among “somewhat liberal” voters, Sanders leads with 35% support followed by Buttigieg with 19%, Warren with 14% and Klobuchar with 13%. And among “moderate” or “conservative” voters, Sanders and Biden lead with 20% support, followed by Buttigieg at 18%, and Klobuchar at 14%.

Sanders leads both congressional districts; in the first district 31% of voters support him, followed by Buttigieg with 16% and Warren with 14%. In the second district, Sanders has a larger lead with 34% support, followed by Buttigieg with 17%, and Biden with 13%. 

Voters were also asked to pick the candidate they believe will become the eventual nominee. A plurality (42%) of voters chose Sanders, followed by 32% who chose Biden. Ten-percent (10%) of voters indicated they believed Buttigieg would be the nominee, a slight increase from 7% who chose Buttigieg in yesterday’s poll. Since the beginning of the New Hampshire tracking poll, Biden has moved down seven points in the expected nominee question from 39% to 32%.

The majority of voters, 54% said the most important factor is to select a nominee with the best chance to defeat Donald Trump, in contrast to 46% who select a candidate who is closer to their views on issues. 

Caller ID

The New Hampshire Emerson College poll was conducted February 2-February 4, 2020. All data for February 4 was collected between 6pm-8pm EST, after the Iowa Democratic Party announced the partial results of the Iowa caucus. The sample consisted of registered Democratic and Independent voters, n=500, with a Credibility Interval (CI) similar to a poll’s margin of error (MOE) of +/- 4.3 percentage points. The data was weighted based on gender, age, education, region, and based on 2016 turnout model. It is important to remember that subsets based on gender, age, party breakdown, ethnicity and region carry with them higher margins of error, as the sample size is reduced. Data was collected using an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system of landlines only (n=370) and online panels provided by Dynata and MTurk (n=130).