Sanders, Clinton Going Down to the Wire, Iowa Poll Shows

Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are locked in a two-point race in Iowa ahead of the Feb. 1 caucuses, raising the prospect that eight years after her stinging loss there to Barack Obama, the state that kicks off the presidential nominating process may once again deal the front-runner a momentum-sapping blow.

Clinton leads Sanders 42 percent to 40 percent, a significant narrowing of her nine-point lead last month as her own appeal has eroded, according to a Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register Iowa Poll released Thursday. A third contender, former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley, is at 4 percent. While Clinton publicly shrugs off the polls—“I just don't pay that much attention to them,” she said Wednesday on CBS—the tightening race is reflected in the campaign rhetoric: In recent days, both she and her daughter, Chelsea, have stepped up criticism of Sanders, a one-time Senate colleague of Clinton's. Sanders, a 74-year-old socialist who caucuses with Senate Democrats, though he is registered as an independent, is returning the favor, suggesting that Clinton's more aggressive tone is a sign that her campaign is in “serious trouble.”