Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar is capitalizing off of a strong performance in the Democratic Debate to surge to third-place in the latest WBZ/Boston Globe/Suffolk University tracking poll for the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday.
Klobuchar had previously trailed front-runners Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg, former Vice President Joe Biden, and Senator Elizabeth Warren.
With the boost for Klobuchar, falling out of the top four could be devastating for Biden or Warren after disappointing showings a week ago in the Iowa caucus which Buttigieg won over Sanders by just 0.1 percent.
“This is the first time all of the survey is post-debate,” David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, told CBS Boston. “Whether Klobuchar’s spike is temporary remains to be seen. Sanders’s improvement comes in two areas: the West/North region — the four counties that know him best — and people torn between him and Warren. If Klobuchar were to finish third or fourth, she’s going to knock someone into that fifth spot, a real dire place to be for Biden or Warren.”
Sanders (27%) has an eight-point lead over Buttigieg (19%) in New Hampshire, while Klobuchar has 14 percent. Biden sits at 11.8 percent and Warren has 11.6 percent.
The tracking poll surveys a two-day rolling sample of 500 likely Democratic primary voters in the state of New Hampshire and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.
The primary takes place on Tuesday, February 11, so it is going to be interesting to see how it all plays out.
